the Stuart crown was to go down, "there are heads to be broke." For George the First to attempt to form a Coalition Cabinet of Whigs and Tories at such a time would have been about as wild a scheme as for M. Thiers to have formed a Coalition Cabinet of Republicans and of Bonapartists, while Napoleon the Third was yet living at Chiselhurst. [Sidenote: 1714--The Treaty of Utrecht] The Tories had been much discredited in the eyes of the country by the Peace of Utrecht. The long War of the Succession had been allowed to end without securing to England and to Europe the one purpose with which it was undertaken by the allies. It was a war to decide whether a French prince, a grandson of Louis the Fourteenth, and whose accession seemed to threaten a future union of Spain with France, should or should not be allowed to ascend the throne of Spain. The end of the war left the French prince on the throne of Spain. Yet even this fact would not in itself have been very distressing or alarming to the English people, however it might have pained others of the allied States. The English people probably would never have drawn a sword against France in this quarrel if it had not been for the rash act of Louis the Fourteenth in recognizing the chevalier, James Stuart, as King of England on the death of his father, James the Second. But England felt bitterly that the Peace of Utrecht left France and Louis not only unpunished, but actually rewarded. All the campaigns, the victories, the sacrifices, the genius of Marlborough, the heroism of his soldiers, had ended in nothing. Peace was secured at any price. It was not that {93} the people of England did not want to have a peace made at the time. On the contrary, most Englishmen were thoroughly tired of the war, and felt but little interest in the main objects for which it had been originally undertaken. Most Englishmen would have agreed to the very terms which were contained in the Treaty, disadvantageous as these conditions were in many points. But they were ashamed of the manner in which the Treaty had been brought about, more than of the Treaty itself. France lost little or nothing by the arrangement; she sacrificed no territory, and was left with practically the same frontier which she had secured for herself twenty years before. Spain had to give up her possessions in Italy and the Low countries. The Dutch got very little to make up to them for their troubles and losses, but they could do nothing for themselves, and the English statesmen were determined not to continue the war. Yet, on the whole, these terms were not altogether unsatisfactory to the people of England. The war was becoming an insufferable burden. The National Debt was swollen to a size which alarmed at that time and almost horrified many persons, and there seemed no chance whatever of the expulsion of Philip, the French prince, from Spain. All these considerations had much influence over the public mind, and possibly