King to write such a letter, and declared that it implied a positive promise to surrender Gibraltar to Spain. The courtiers, as the supporters of the Ministry were then called, to distinguish them from the country party--that is to say, the Opposition--endeavored to qualify and make light of the expressions used in the late King's letter, to show that they were merely hypothetical and conditional, and insisted that effectual care had since been taken in every way to maintain the right of England to Gibraltar. The country party moved that words be added to the Lords' resolution requiring "that all pretensions on the part of the Crown of Spain to the said places be specifically given up." Two hundred and sixty-seven votes against one hundred and eleven refused the addition of these words as unnecessary, and too much in the nature of a challenge and defiance to Spain. But the motion that "this House does agree with the Lords in the said resolution" was carried without a division, the Court party not venturing to offer any objection to it. The King received the address of both Houses on Tuesday, March 25th, and returned an answer thanking them for the confidence reposed in him, and assuring them that "I will take effectual care, as I have hitherto done, to secure my undoubted right to Gibraltar and the island of Minorca." The difficulty was over for the present. The Government contrived to arrange a new treaty with Spain, the Treaty of Seville, in which France also was included. This treaty settled for the time the disputes about English trade with the New World, and the claims of Spain for a restoration of Gibraltar were, indirectly at least, {298} given up. Perhaps the whole story is chiefly interesting now as affording an illustration of the manner in which the Patriots turned everything to account for their one great purpose of harassing the administration of Sir Robert Walpole. All the patriotic effusiveness about the undoubted right of England to Gibraltar was merely well-painted passion. Such sentiment as exists in the English mind with regard to the possession of "the Rock" now, did not exist, had not had time to come into existence, then. Gibraltar was taken in 1704; its possession was confirmed to England by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Since that time English Ministers had again and again been considering the expediency of restoring Gibraltar to the Spaniards. Stanhope had been in favor of the restoration; Townshend and Carteret had been in favor of it. Some of the Patriots themselves, before they came to be dubbed Patriots, had been in favor of it. Only the unreasonable and insolent behavior of Spain herself stood at one time in the way of the restitution. Gibraltar was one capture, like many others; captured territory changed and changed hands with each new arrangement in those days. Minorca, which was included with Gibraltar in the resolution of the two Houses