Let. 7. and State of Europe . 169

dutchy of Brabant, and other portions of the LowConntries as devolved on hís queen by the deathof her father Philip the fourth, he pulled off theniuík entirely. Volumes were vvritten to establiíh,and to réfuté this fupposed righu, Your lordlhipno doubt will look into a controveríy that ha semployed so many pens and so many svvords; andI believe you will think it was í’ufficiently bold inthe French , to argue frqm cuíloms, that regulatedthe course of private successions in certain provin-ces, to a right of succeeding to the sovereigntyof those provinces; and to assert the divisibility ofthe Spanish monarchy, with the famé breath withwhich they aílerted the indivisibility of their own;although the proofs in one case were just as goodas the proofs in the other, and the fondamentallaw of indivisibility was at least as good a law inSpain , as either this or the Salique law was in France .But however proper it might be for the French andAuílrian pens to enter into long discussions, andto appeal, on this gréât occasion, to the rest ofEurope ; the rest of Europe had a short objection tomake to the plea of France , which no sophisms,no quirks of law, could évadé. Spain accepted therenonciations as a real security : France gave thernas loch to Spain , and in effect to the rest of Europe .If they had not been thus given, and thus taken,the Spaniards would not hâve married their Infantato the king of Frange, whatever distreís theymight hâve endured by the prolongation of thewar, These renonciations were renonciations of ailçights whatsqever to the whole Spanilh monarchy,