All that the wisdom of the senate could devise was attempted to mitigate the evil. The revenge of the losers was appeased by several members being expelled the house; their fear of loss was reduced by the confiscation of the estates of the offending parties; a lottery was granted for the advantage of the sufferers; and though a dividend of nearly ten shillings was eventually paid, the fraud of the Charitable Corporation was remembered long after the evils caused by it had ceased to exist. The next great increase of debt was through the War of Succession in Spain, to the crown of which several princes laid claim. According to the ordinary rule of inheritance, the Dauphin, by virtue of the marriage of Louis XIV. with the eldest sister of the king, should have succeeded; but as all right to the throne had been solemnly renounced on the marriage, it was supposed that the claim was vacated; and the principal powers of Europe, knowing the necessity that so great an inheritance should not descend to any state possessed of territorial importance, formed the celebrated partition treaty. By this, France, England, and Holland agreed that Spain, the Indies, and the Netherlands should descend to the Archduke Charles, and, in return, that France should be possessed of the rich province of Lorraine. There is no doubt that governments regard treaties in proportion to the physical rather than the moral necessity to abide by them; and France, under Louis Quatorze, was no exception to the rule. A succession of cabals in Spain gave the latter the influence he required. His ambassador won the court and city; the Archbishop of Toledo was of his party, and gained the Spanish king, who, sick body and soul, priest-ridden, a prey to mental and physical agony, was, after a succession of intrigues, induced to fix his name to that will which annexed the splendid possession of the empire of Spain to the grandeur of France. At once Louis violated the partition treaty, accepted the noble legacy for his grandson, and sent the whole court of France to accompany him to the Pyrenees, that frontier which he said in his pride had ceased to exist. When the news reached William, he was at the Hague, but instantly returned to London. Vigorous preparations were made; but he did not live to see the declaration of the war, which began in 1782, agitated Europe for thirteen years, and added so much to the great debt of which this volume treats.