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Let. 8 - and State of Europe . 507

William putin practice, the compounding withFrance , to prevent if poffible a war, in whichwe were averfe to engage?

Allow me to pufh thefe reflections a littlefurther, and to obferve to your lordfhip, that ifthe propofal of fending the archduke in Spain had been accepted in time by the imperial court,and taken effeCt and become a meafure of theconfederacy, that war indeed would have beenprotradted; but France could not have hinderedthe palfage of this prince and his German forces :and our fleet would have been better employedin efcorting them, and in covering the coafts ofSpain and of the dominions of that crown bothin Europe and in America, than it was in fomany unmeaning expeditions from the battle ofLa Hogue to the end of the war. France indeedwould have made her utmoft efforts to have hadfatisfaClion on her pretenfions, as ill founded asthey were. She would have ended that war, aswe began the next , when we demanded areafonable fatisfaClion for the emperor: and thoughI think that the allies would have had, in verymany refpeCls, more advantages in defendingSpain , than in attacking France ; yet, upon afuppofition that the defence would have been asill conducted as the attack was, and that by con-fequence, whether CHARLES the fecond had livedto the conclufion of this war, or had died beforeit, the war muft have ended in fome partition orother; this partition would have been made bythe Spaniards themfelves. They had been forced