Their offer of mediation involved the renunciation on the part of Austria of all claims on the Spanish monarchy, which had never hitherto been dropped,--on the part of Spain of all claims on the Italian provinces. The exchange of Sicily for Sardinia was to be carried out, and Parma and Tuscany to be given to Don Carlos. Enraged at this offer, the work of men, as he said, "who cut and pared countries as they would Dutch cheeses," Alberoni at once set to work all the apparatus his intrigue had prepared. The anger of Savoy was aroused at the loss of Sicily; the Turks, already at war with Austria, were subsidized and urged to further exertions; Ragotski, Prince of Transylvania, was brought forward to demand his hereditary dominions, to hamper Austria on the east; the Spanish envoy in France busily stirred up faction there; Charles XII. and the Czar were urged to immediate action; and an expedition against England, headed by Ormond or the Pretender himself, was set on foot. The whole of Europe seemed involved. The mediating Powers found themselves likely to be drawn into war. Stanhope was removed from his position as First Lord of the Treasury, and made Secretary of State for the Southern Department, which included foreign affairs, and on June 4, 1718, Admiral Byng set sail from England for the Mediterranean. [Sidenote: Formation of the Quadruple Alliance. August 1718.] [Sidenote: Fall of Alberoni. Dec. 1719.] The crisis was so threatening that the Austrian Emperor, who had refused to accede to the mediation of the Powers, yielded. England procured for him the Treaty of Passowitz, which secured him from the Turks, bought off at the expense of the Venetians, from whom they had conquered the Morea; and a Quadruple Alliance between England, France, Austria, and Holland was formed on the basis of the old project of mediation, with this difference, that Parma and Tuscany were to be held by Don Carlos only as fiefs of the Empire. Without open declaration of war, France and England had virtually joined the Austrian alliance. Alberoni, however, persisted in his schemes, but fortune had turned against him. The Spanish fleet, not knowing whether it was peace or war, was fallen upon and destroyed by Byng off Cape Passaro; Savoy, yielding to the pressure of the Quadruple Alliance, accepted Sardinia in exchange for Sicily; the death of Charles XII. broke up the Northern Alliance; the conspiracy in France was discovered when approaching maturity, the Spanish ambassador and the Duke and Duchess of Maine apprehended; of the Pretender's expedition, scattered in the Bay of Biscay, two frigates only reached Loch Alsh in Scotland. A few hundreds of the Highlanders gathered to their standard, but the appearance of English troops put them to flight; the chiefs escaped to Spain, the Highlanders were allowed to fly unmolested to their hills, the Spanish troops were taken prisoners of war. War having now been regularly declared, the French crossed the