Cassell's History of England, Vol. 4 (of 8): From the Fall of Marlborough to the Peninsular WarAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 4 (of 8): From the Fall of Marlborough to the Peninsular War
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
Accordingly, on the 5th of June, the queen proceeded to the House
of Lords, and stated in a long speech the terms on which it was
proposed to make the peace with France--namely, that Louis XIV. should
acknowledge the Protestant succession and remove the Pretender out of
France; that Philip should renounce the Crown of Spain, should that
of France devolve on him; and that the kings of both France and Spain
should make solemn engagements for themselves and their heirs that the
two kingdoms should never be united under one crown; that Newfoundland,
with Placentia, Hudson's Bay, Nova Scotia, or Acadia, as it was then
termed by the French, as well as Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and the whole
island of Minorca, should be ceded to England; that the Spanish
Netherlands, Naples, Sardinia, the Duchy of Milan, and the places on
the Tuscan coast, formerly belonging to Spain, should be yielded to
Austria, the appropriation of Sicily being not so far determined;
that France would make the Rhine the barrier of the Empire, yielding
up all places beyond it, and razing the fortresses on the German side
as well as in the river; that the barriers of Savoy, the Netherlands,
and Prussia, should be made satisfactory to the Allies. The Electoral
dignity was to be acknowledged in the House of Hanover.
[Illustration: DEAN SWIFT.]
The House of Commons received the speech with enthusiasm, and carried
up an address of thanks in a body. Very different, however, was the
reception of the speech in the House of Lords. Lord Wharton proposed
that in the address they should declare themselves against a separate
peace, and the Duke of Marlborough supported that view. He said that
for a year past the measures pursued were directly opposed to her
Majesty's engagement with the Allies, had sullied the glories of her
reign, and would render our name odious to all nations. Lord Strafford,
who had come over from the Hague purposely to defend the Government
policy, and his own share in it at Utrecht, asserted that the
opposition of the Allies would not have been so obstinate had they not
been encouraged by a certain member of that House who corresponded with
them, and stimulated them by assurances that they would be supported
by a large party in England. This blow aimed at Marlborough called up
Lord Cowper, who directed his sarcasm against Strafford on the ground
of his well-known illiterate character, observing that the noble lord
had been so long abroad that he had forgotten not only the language but
the constitution of his country; that according to our laws it could
never be a crime in an individual to correspond with its allies, but
that it was a crime to correspond, as certain persons did, with the
common enemy, unknown to the allies, and to their manifest prejudice.
The amendment of Lord Wharton, however, was rejected, and the protest,
entered against its rejection by twenty peers and bishops, was voted
violent and indecorous, and erased from the journal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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