194 :

A Sketch, of the H i S t o u y Let. j.

to this cause, vvhich was brought about by therévolution of one thousand six hundredand eighty-eight, might hâve ruade amends, and more thanamends, one would think, for this defect, andhâve thrown superiority of power and of succès-,on the side of the confederates, with whom llietook part against France . This, I say, might beimagined, without over-rating the povver of Fng-land, or undervaluing that of France ; and it wasimagined at that rime. How it proved othervvisein the event ; how France came triomphant out ofthe war that ended by the treaty of Ryswic, andthough ílie gave up a gréât deal, yet preservedthe greatest and the best part of her conquestsand acquisitions made since the treaties of West-phalia, and the Pyrénées ; how the acquired, bythe gift of Spain , that whole monarchy for oneof her princes, though the had no reafon to expeCÌ:the least part of it without a war at one time,nor the gréât lot of it even by a war at any time;in short, bow the wound up advantageoufly theambitions system the had been fifty years in weav-ing ; how the concluded a war, in vvhich íhe wasdefeated on every side, and wholly exhausted,with little diminution of the provinces and barriersacquired to France , and with the quiet possessionof Spain and the Indies to a prince of the houleof Bourbon: ail this, my lord, will be the subjectof your researches when y ou corne down to thelatter part of the last period of modem history.