The general discontent at the course of the war, the general anxiety to preserve the new gains of the peace, told alike on William and on the party which had backed his policy. In England almost every one was set on two objects, the reduction of taxes and the disbanding of the standing army. The war had raised the taxes from two millions a year to four. It had bequeathed twenty millions of debt and a fresh six millions of deficit. The standing army was still held to be the enemy of liberty, as it had been held under the Stuarts; and hardly any one realized the new conditions of political life which had robbed its existence of danger to the State. The king however resisted desperately the proposals for its disbanding; for the maintenance of the army was all-important for the success of the negotiations he was carrying on. But his stubborn opposition only told against himself. Personally indeed the king still remained an object of national gratitude; but his natural partiality to his Dutch favourites, the confidence he gave to Sunderland, his cold and sullen demeanour, above all his endeavours to maintain the standing army, robbed him of popularity and of the strength which comes from popularity. The negotiations too which he was carrying on were a secret he could not reveal; and his prayers failed to turn the Parliament from its purpose. The army and navy were ruthlessly cut down. How much William's hands were weakened by this reduction of forces and by the peace-temper of England was shown by the Second Partition Treaty which was concluded in 1700 between the two maritime powers and France. The demand of Lewis that the Netherlands should be given to the Elector of Bavaria, whose political position would always leave him a puppet in the French king's hands, was indeed successfully resisted. Spain, the Netherlands, and the Indies were assigned to the second son of the Emperor, the Archduke Charles of Austria. But the whole of the Spanish territories in Italy were now granted to France; and it was provided that Milan should be exchanged for Lorraine, whose Duke was to be summarily transferred to the new Duchy. If the Emperor persisted in his refusal to come into the Treaty the share of his son was to pass to another unnamed prince, who was probably the Duke of Savoy. [Sidenote: Fall of the Junto.]