"The world is right about Lord Stair," said the King; "I never before saw a man who would not have troubled me with excuses and ceremony." [Sidenote: 1723--Spain] The French Government naturally feared that the recall of Lord Stair might be marked by a change in the friendly disposition of England. This fear became greater on the death of Stanhope. The English Government, however, took steps to reassure the Regent of France. Townshend himself wrote at once to Cardinal Dubois, promising to maintain as before a cordial friendship with the French Government. Walpole was entirely imbued with the instincts of such a policy. The chief disturbing influence in Continental politics arose from the anxiety of Spain to recover Gibraltar and Minorca, and, in fact, to get back again all that had been taken from her by the Treaty of Utrecht. The territorial and other arrangements which concluded with the Treaty of Utrecht made themselves the central point of all the foreign policy of that time: these States were concerned to maintain the treaty; those were eager to break through its bonds. It holds in the politics of that day the place which was held by the Treaty of Vienna at a later period. There is always much of the hypocritical about the manner in which treaties of that highly artificial nature are made. No State really intends to hold by them any longer than she finds that they serve her own interests. If they are imposed upon a State and are injurious to her, that State never means to submit to them any longer than she is actually under compulsion. New means and impulses to break away from such bonds are given to those inclined that way, in the fact that the arrangements are usually made without the slightest concern for the populations of the countries concerned, but only for dynastic or other political considerations. The pride of the Spanish people was so much hurt by some of the conditions of the Treaty {228} of Utrecht that a Spanish sovereign or minister would always be popular who could point to his people a way to escape from its bonds or to rend them in pieces. Spain, therefore, was always looking out for new alliances. She saw at one time a fresh chance for trying her policy, and she held out every inducement in her power to the Emperor Charles the Sixth and to Russia to enter into a combination against France and England. The Emperor was without a son, and, in consequence, had issued his famous Pragmatic Sanction, providing that his hereditary dominions in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia should descend to his daughter Maria Theresa. The great Powers of Europe had not as yet seen fit to guarantee, or even recognize, this succession. Spain held out the temptation to the Emperor of her own guarantee to the Pragmatic Sanction and of several important concessions in the matter of trade and commerce to Austria, on consideration that the Emperor should assist Spain to recover her lost territory.