I. PART dile, France lay cautiously waiting a more fa vourable opportunity to declare her enmity; an affected neutrality filled her ports with com1740. merce, her provinces with plenty, and her treafury with that profufion of opulence which afterwards enabled her to maintain fuch potent armies, and make fuch valuable acquifitions, as to threaten the fafety and endanger the liberty of all Europe. From the British conquefts in Ame rica, the court of Spain ftill more perceptibly found their inequality to continue the war, without the concurrence of France; and loudly complained at the pacific conduct of the court of Verfailles, where the Spanish minifter infifting that France was bound to appear openly in the vindication and favour of Spain, and by his frequent repetitions on a fubject, at that time, fo unharmonious to the ears of Cardinal de Fleury, he was, through his influence, recalled, and even difgraced; a furprizing inftance of his eminency's fuperintendency over the cabinet of Madrid, and how abfolutely that court was fubmiffively devoted to the policy of France. THE defigns of the French miniftry were too impervious to be penetrated by the Spaniards, their motives had a very different tendency than to the fervice and intereft of Spain, and the deluded court of Madrid was only employed and actuated by France, as a neceffary utenfil to pave the way to that unlimited great, nefs her ambition was ever foaring. True, inflamed by this ambition, France has often spread war and defolation round the regions of Europe; yet is it not lefs certain, that her neceffity has frequently opened a fimilar fcene of havoc and devaftation for when the plains of France fmile in the ferenity of peace, when plenty crowns her ; fields with golden harvests, and her exuberant CHA P. vineyards are filled with autumnal clufters, amid IV. these scenes of pleasure and abundance, the poor peasant can neither gratify his hunger, indulge. 1740. his thirft, nor cloath his body to preserve it from the heat of fummer, or fecure it from the inclemency of winter; this gripe of poverty creates a defire of war among the ruftics; war, if it is not to them as it was to the Lacedæmoneans, a pleafure, is certainly a relief, as it frees them from the most parfimonious kind of diet, yields them the military cloathing, and a fuftenance infinite more comfortable from the royal allowance: the merchants are never averfe to a war against England or Holland, as their fhips fwarm on the feas in much greater numbers than the French, and give them an opportunity of increasing their fortunes by the fuccefs of their privateers: the nobility and gentry of France are ever arduous for a war, as their patrimonial fortunes are generally too flender to fupport their quality, which receives an additional luftre from any important command in the army; and the kings of France have long founded their intereft on a vigorous and tranfient war; fo that war is univerfally the intereft of the whole kingdom of France, and the fhorter is duration the more advantageous it proves; for by a permanent, though fuccefstul, war, the force of France would be reduced and the nation impoverished, as their trade is too infufficient to af ford the neceffary supplies, and by a reduction of the royal finances the king would be unable to maintain his army. Hence it appears that the views of France, both in war and peace, though effected by different motives, terminate by the fame caufe, neceffity. It was this neceffity com pelled the French to ratify the treaty of Utrecht, PART no other, especially with regard to Great Britain; I. for that treaty was fo far from reconciling the oppofite interefts of the two crowns, that every 1740. motive of competition ftill fubfifted between them, they were ftill rivals in trade and adverfaries in religion, and the fame effects are always to be expected from the fame caufes. From that day the French were induftriously engaged in repairing the ruins of a long and deftructive war, in restoring credit, and re-establishing trade, protracting their scheme of universal monarchy, till they fhould be able to profecute it with vigour; and appeared wholly employed in the bufinefs of traffic, and the arts of peace, that they might lull the world in negligence, and furprize the neighbouring powers in their fecurity with an unexpected burft of invafion. They found themselves in a condition almost ready to ftrike the blow for univerfal monarchy, and were only impeded through the apprehenfions of the formation of too potent a confederacy to obftruct their ambition; in this the court of Great Britain, the house of Auftria, and the States General, were the moft natural allies; and therefore to feize the most convenient opportunity privately to distress, divide, amuse, and deceive these powers, was the principal aim of the politics of France. Accordingly, the foundation of her afpiring greatness was laid by the war between Great Britain and Spain, which the French miniftry had indefatigably promoted, by encouraging the Spaniards to continue their unjust depredations on the English in the West Indies, fomenting the diffentions, and exaggerating on the differences exifting be tween the two crowns, and promifing the court of Madrid affiftance and relief; which after the departure of the marquis de las Minas from Paris, they IV. 1740. they put in execution, by fending a strong squa- CHAP. dron from Breft and Toulon under the marquis de Antin to Martinico, one of their fettlements in the West Indies, with fecret orders not only to act in a hoftile manner against the British subjects, either jointly with the Spaniards or feparately, but even to concert measures with them for attacking Jamaica; and when the earl of Waldegrave, the British embaffador at the court of France, demanded the reafon of equipping this armament; the cardinal told him, "That "there was difference between arming and de"claring war; and that it was true his moft "Christian majefty had promised a neutrality, "but as unforeseen accidents might happen, it "was prudence to be prepared against all events." To give themselves the greater fecurity from the refentment of the crown of Great Britain, and to irritate that nation to a retaliation of injuries by a fpeedy declaration of war, the French committed a notorious contravention of the treaty of Utrecht, by repairing and refortifying the port of Dunkirk; that port, which by this treaty they had been compelled to destroy, which they had folemnly ftipulated never to restore, and from which more moleftation might arife to the British commerce than from all the other coafts of France, as it would enable the French to croud the channel with privateers, and pursue the British merchants even to their own ports; nor could all the remonftrances made by the British and Dutch embaffador, against so public an infraction of fo folemn a treaty, in the leaft deter the French from continuing the work, which they completed without interruption. Upon this his most Chriftian majefty published a declaration to vindicate the neceffity of fitting out the fleet under the PART the marquis de Antin, and the fortifying Dun I. kirk and port l'Orient; wherein he declares, "That after the taking of Porto Bello and Cha1740.gre, the ambaffador of Great Britain was from "that time advertised in his majefty's name, that "the English ought not to think that France "beheld with an eye of indifference the enter"prizes which the English nation had formed "in America, nor that the king would fuffer "them to make any establishment in the Weft "Indies; that the declaration was renewed, in "proportion as the preparations against America. "were feen to indicate more certainly projects› "of conqueft; and the British ambaffador not. "returning any answer on a point fo important, "the king thought that he ought not any longer "to defer fitting out his fhips, to put himself in "a condition of preventing a danger that be-. "came every day more preffing; alledging for "the precautions taken at the city de l'Orient "and Dunkirk, that they were only to hinder; ❝ any furprize from the English corfairs,” though it eventually appeared quite the reverse. In times of war the predominant paffion of Englishmen is a fierce and refolute refentment against their enemy; ever jealous of their naval honour, they chearfully grant any fubfidies requifite to maintain their illuftrious character, and hold their lives and fortunes devoted to the use and interest of their king and country: this makes them fond of seeing their military power exerted : but the miniftry was too timorous to gratify their wishes, and sustained the loudest popular exclamations against their pacific conduct with a long and furprizing patience; they knew the power of France, they dreaded its alliance with Spain, and were too cautiously endeavouring to stifle the leaft |