I know what was been said in excuse of this measure,taken,as I believe,on female importunity;but certainly without any regard to public faith,to the true interest of France in those circumstances,or to the true interest of the prince thus acknowledged,in any.it was said,that the treaty of Ryswic obliged his most Christian majesty only not to disturb king William in his possession,he slight,without any violation of it,have acknowledged this prince as king of England;according to the political casuistry of the French,and the example of France,who finds no fault with the powers that treat with the kings of England,although the kings of England retain the title of kings of France;as well as the example of Spain,who makes no complaints that other states treat with the kings of France,although the kings of France retain the title of Navarre.But besides that the examples are not apposite,because no other powers acknowledge in form the king of England to be king of France,nor the king of France to be king of Navarre;with what face could the French excuse this measure?Could they excuse it by urging that they adhered to the strict letter of one article of the treaty of Ryswic,against the plain meaning of that very article,and against the whole tenor of that treaty;in the same breath with which they justified the acceptation of the will,by pretending they adhered to the supposed spirit and general intention of the treaties of partition,in contradiction to the letter,to the specific engagements,and to the whole purport of those treaties?This part of the conduct of Louis the Fourteenth may appear justly the more surprising,because in most other parts of his conduct at the same time,and in some to his disadvantage,he acted cautiously,endeavored to calm the minds of his neighbors,to reconcile Europe to his grandson's elevation,and to avoid all show of beginning hostilities.
Though king William was determined to engage in a war with France and Spain,yet the same good policy,that determined him to engage,determined him not to engage too deeply.The engagement taken in the grand alliance of one thousand seven hundred and one is,"To procure an equitable and reasonable satisfaction to his imperial majesty for his pretension to the Spanish succession;and sufficient security to the king of England,and the States General,for their dominions,and for the navigation and commerce of their subjects,and to prevent the union of the two monarchies of France and Spain."As king of England,as stadtholder of Holland,he neither could,nor did engage any further.It may be disputed perhaps among speculative politicians,whether the balance of power in Europe would have been better preserved by that scheme of partition,which the treaties,and particularly the last of them,proposed,or by that which the grand alliance proposed to be the object of the war?I think there is little room for such a dispute,as I shall have occasion to say hereafter more expressly.In this place Ishall only say,that the object of this war,which king William meditated,and queen Anne waged,was a partition,by which a prince of the house of Bourbon,already acknowledged by its and the Dutch as king of Spain,was to be left on the throne of that dismembered monarchy.The wisdom of those councils saw that the peace of Europe might be restored and secured on this foot,and that the liberties of Europe would be in no danger.
The scales of the balance of power will never be exactly poised,nor in the precise point of equality either discernible or necessary to be discerned.
It is sufficient in this,as in other human affairs,that the deviation be not too great.Some there will always be.A constant attention to these deviations is therefore necessary.When they are little,their increase may be easily prevented by early care and the precautions that good policy suggests.But when they become great for want of this care and these precautions,or by the force of unforeseen events,more vigor is to be exerted,and greater efforts to be made.But even in such cases,much reflection is necessary on all the circumstances that form the conjuncture;lest,by attacking with ill success,the deviation be confirmed,and the power that is deemed already exorbitant become more so;and lest,by attacking with good success,whilst one scale is pillaged,too much weight of power be thrown into the other.
In such cases,he who has considered,in the histories of former ages,the strange revolutions that time produces,and the perpetual flux and reflux of public as well as private fortunes,of kingdoms and states as well as of those who govern or are governed in them,will incline to think,that if the scales can be brought back by a war,nearly,though not exactly,to the point they were at before this great deviation from it,the rest may be left to accidents,and to the use that good policy is able to make of them.
