2. It was easy to slight the influence which the ties of blood exert over kings. Doubtless they are often torn asunder by ambition or wounded pride. But it does not follow that they have no efficacy; and the practice of courts in cementing alliances by intermarriage seems to show that they are not reckoned indifferent. It might, however, be admitted that a king of Spain, such as she had been a hundred years before, would probably be led by the tendency of his ambition into a course of policy hostile to France. But that monarchy had long been declining; great rather in name and extent of dominion than intrinsic resources, she might perhaps rally for a short period under an enterprising minister; but with such inveterate abuses of government, and so little progressive energy among the people, she must gradually sink lower in the scale of Europe, till it might become the chief pride of her sovereigns that they were the younger branches of the house of Bourbon. To cherish this connection would be the policy of the court of Versailles; there would result from it a dependent relation, an habitual subserviency of the weaker power, a family compact of perpetual union, always opposed to Great Britain. In distant ages, and after fresh combinations of the European commonwealth should have seemed almost to efface the recollection of Louis XIV. and the war of the succession, the Bourbons on the French throne might still claim a sort of primogenitary right to protect the dignity of the junior branch by interference with the affairs of Spain; and a late posterity of those who witnessed the peace of Utrecht might be entangled by its improvident concessions. 3. That the accession of Charles to the empire rendered his possession of the Spanish monarchy in some degree less desirable, need not be disputed; though it would not be easy to prove that it could endanger England, or even the smaller states, since it was agreed on all hands that he was to be master of Milan and Naples. But against this, perhaps imaginary, mischief the opponents of the treaty set the risk of seeing the crowns of France and Spain united on the head of Philip. In the years 1711 and 1712 the dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Duke of Berry, were swept away. An infant stood alone between the King of Spain and the French succession. The latter was induced, with some unwillingness, to sign a renunciation of this contingent inheritance. But it was notoriously the doctrine of the French court that such renunciations were invalid; and the sufferings of Europe were chiefly due to this tenet of indefeasible royalty. It was very possible that Spain would never consent to this union, and that a fresh league of the great powers might be formed to prevent it; but, if we had the means of permanently separating the two kingdoms in our hands, it was strange policy to leave open this door for a renewal of the quarrel.