“If the land forces of Spain had been upon this footing in the beginning of the present century, the nation would have beheld with as much security as contempt, the combination of the Courts of Vienna and London to impose a master upon her, and to divide her possessions. With the advantages in regard to war, which this kingdom has even from nature, it might have bidden defiance to France herself conspiring with the other Powers, to oblige her to submit to the treaty of partition.” It was quite intelligible to me now, that three great rival nations should concert to banish Alberoni from the counsels of the grandson of Louis XIV. He had penetrated to the Gothic foundations of the society of the peninsula, and had ascended to those Gothic pinnacles, from which he could survey the littleness of his contemporaries. He foresaw in the event of a general military despotism, the possibility of Europe’s being recovered by the latent energy of the Spanish people, and the ultimate range of his provision and prophecy was Southern and Western Europe quelled, and its rivalries composed by the intrusion of the two northern powers, Prussia and Russia. He was above the arts of government, and knew where the greatness of his adopted country resided. He scouted acquisitions as a source of splendour to the state, or patronage as a means of strength to the government. The great men of the period attained by peculiar powers the management of men; but there is not one whose words time has undertaken to confirm. Where is Richelieu’s management; Colbert’s finance; where are Fleury’s devices; or Louis le Grand’s victories? They have vanished with the fortunes they created, and have left us such instruction only as we may derive from the cell of a culprit, or the fragments of a column. Those who have prognosticated one among a thousand events, have been held wise in their generation. Alberoni has traced out before the event the salient features of the European system, as if he were describing it now. He foresaw the failure of all the endeavours of the Bourbon courts to restore the Pretender. He warned them that their fleets would fail against England, told them that[61] “cruisers” were the only effectual arm with which to assail her commercial greatness, laughed at their projects of a hundred thousand men in arms in the Highlands, or in Ireland, and recommended as a surer recipe for ruining England, the securing “_Ten members of the House of Commons, with a few Peers of note_.” He pointed to the sagacity of William III., who had established his throne by the then bold but well-considered measure of plunging the country in war, and loading it with debt. He furnishes a parallel to Talleyrand, both driven from office by a combination of foreign powers;[62] but all Europe feared the Cardinal of Parma, Russia alone feared the ex-bishop of Autun.