that balance of power on which the safety and commerce of the maritime powers so much depend." With any other minister than Walpole to manage affairs, England would unquestionably have been drawn into the war. Walpole's strong determination and ingenious delays carried his policy through. [Sidenote: 1735--"Bonnie Prince Charlie"] The war has one point of peculiar and romantic interest for Englishmen. Charles Edward Stuart, the "bonnie Prince Charlie" of a later date, the hero and darling of so much devotion, poetry, and romance, received his baptism of fire in the Italian campaign under Don Carlos. Charles Edward was then a mere boy. He was born in the later days of 1720, and was now about the age to serve some picturesque princess as her page. He was sent as a volunteer to the siege of Gaeta, and was received with every mark of honor by Don Carlos. The English Court heard rumors that Don Carlos had gone out of his way to pay homage to the Stuart prince, and had even acted in a manner to give the impression that he identified himself with the cause of the exiled family. There were demands {30} for explanation made by the English minister at the Spanish Court, and explanations were given and excuses offered. It was all merely because of a request made by the Duke of Berwick's son, the Spanish prime-minister said. The Duke of Berwick's son asked permission to bring his cousin Charles Edward to serve as a volunteer, and the Court of Spain consented, not seeing the slightest objection to such a request; but there was not the faintest idea of receiving the boy as a king's son. King George and Queen Caroline were both very angry, but Walpole wisely told them that they must either resent the offence thoroughly, and by war, or accept the explanations and pretend to be satisfied with them. Walpole's advice prevailed, and the boy prince fleshed his maiden sword without giving occasion to George the Second to seek the ensanguined laurels for which he told Walpole he had long been thirsting. The Hanoverian kings were, to do them justice, generally rather magnanimous in their way of treating the pretensions of the exiled family. We may fairly assume that the conduct of the Spanish prince in this instance did somewhat exceed legitimate bounds. George was wise, however, in consenting to accept the explanations, and to make as little of the incident as the Court of Spain professed to do. [Sidenote: 1735--Success of Walpole's policy]