Nothing could induce Walpole to side with either party in this war, although he suffered much obloquy for refraining from it; and the Emperor, unable to secure his assistance, allowed the pacific mediation of France and England to have its weight. Preliminaries of peace were set on foot (Oct. 1735), which ripened in three years into the great treaty called the Definitive Peace of Vienna, by which the Spanish house was allowed to retain Naples and Sicily. Sardinia was rewarded with some frontier towns, among others Novara and Tortona, Lorraine was ceded to France, and the young Duke of Lorraine, Francis, the affianced husband of Maria Theresa (heiress to the Austrian Empire), was persuaded to accept Tuscany in exchange. France and Sardinia again ratified the Pragmatic Sanction. This somewhat trivial war thus completed the incorporation of France, established the Bourbons in Naples, and was the cause of the connection between Tuscany and the Austrian house. [Sidenote: Increasing opposition to Walpole. 1734.] [Sidenote: Wyndham's speech against Walpole.] Walpole had been more than usually anxious to keep clear of European wars, because the time for the dissolution of the Parliament under the Septennial Act was rapidly approaching, and there seemed every reason to believe that the struggle at the coming election would be a very fierce one. The Opposition were already supplied with several very effective cries. The Excise scheme, the arbitrary punishment of his opponents, and his determination to keep up a standing army, would all powerfully excite the people against the minister. Before the dissolution they added one more cry against him by making a strong attack upon the Septennial Act. As most of the Opposition Whigs had voted for this Act, they had always shrunk from demanding its repeal. It required all the skill of Bolingbroke, the wire-puller of the Opposition, to induce the two parties to unite in the assault. The debate is interesting, as showing in a great speech of Wyndham the temper of the Opposition and the sort of charges to which Walpole was exposed. "Let us suppose," said Wyndham, "a man abandoned to all notions of virtue and honour, of no great family, and of but a mean fortune, raised to be chief Minister of State by the concurrence of many whimsical events, afraid or unwilling to trust any but creatures of his own making, and most of them equally abandoned to all notions of virtue or honour, a man ignorant of the true history of his country, and consulting nothing but that of enriching and aggrandizing himself and his favourites; in foreign affairs trusting none but those whose education makes it impossible for them to have such knowledge or such qualifications as can either be of service to their country or give weight or credit to their negotiations. Let us suppose the true interest of the nation by such means neglected or misunderstood, her honour and credit lost, her trade insulted, her