Colonel Churchill having received Her Majesty’s permission to sell his commission, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Harry Goring, Bart., was promoted to the Colonelcy of the THIRTY-FIRST Regiment by purchase, on the 1st of March, 1711. The decease of Joseph I., Emperor of Germany, took place on the 17th of April, 1711, and King Charles III. of Spain was elected Emperor of Germany, by the title of Charles VI., on the 12th of October of that year: this circumstance rendered unnecessary any further attempts in the cause of King Charles on the part of the British Government. His Majesty embarked at Barcelona on board of the fleet, and proceeded to assume the duties of the Imperial throne. [Sidenote: 1712] [Sidenote: 1713] In the year 1712 negotiations were entered into between Great Britain and France, and a Treaty of Peace was concluded at Utrecht, on the 11th of April, 1713. By this treaty it was settled, that Great Britain should retain possession of Gibraltar, Minorca, and Nova Scotia, which had been conquered during the war, and in acquiring which the _Marine_ Corps had greatly contributed. From the period of the formation of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment, in the year 1702, as a _Corps of Marines_, to the termination of the war by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the regiment was employed, by detachments, on board the fleet, and was engaged on various services at sea, as well as on land, according to the conditions on which it was raised.[8] Among the reductions which were directed to take place in the establishment of the army consequent on the Peace of Utrecht, the _Marine Corps_ were included in the list of regiments to be discontinued. [Sidenote: 1714] The decease of Queen Anne took place on the 1st of August, 1714, and King George I., who was then at Hanover, was immediately proclaimed as the Sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland. The partisans of the Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, son of the late King, James II., renewed their exertions in his behalf; and Jacobite principles had become so prevalent in certain parts of the kingdom, that it was necessary that the army, which had been considerably reduced after the Peace of Utrecht, should be again augmented. Six additional regiments of cavalry (from the ninth to the fourteenth dragoons) were raised. The establishments of the regiments of infantry were increased, and, in consideration of the services of the Marine Corps during the late war, Wills’s, now _thirtieth_,--Goring’s, now _thirty-first_,--and Borr’s, now _thirty-second_, which had been ordered to be disbanded, were retained on the establishment, and were incorporated with the regiments of infantry of the line, and authorised to take rank according to the dates of their original formation in 1702. [Sidenote: 1715]