210

A Sketch of the History let. 8.

to continue and wind up this fummary of thelatter period of modern hiftory.

France then faw her advantage, and improvedit no doubt, though not in the manner, nor withthe circumftances, that fome lying fcribblers ofmemorials and anecdotes have advanced. She hadfent one of the ableft men of her court to that ofMadrid , the marfhal of HarcouRt, and {he hadstipulated in the fecond treaty of partition, thatthe archduke fhould go neither into Spain nor thedutchy of Milan, during the life of Charles thefecond. 'She was willing to have her optionbetween a treaty and a will. By the acceptationof the will, all king William’s meafures werebroke. He was unprepared for war as much aswhen he made thefe treaties to prevent one; and'if he meant in making them, what fome wife,but refining men have fufpeded, and what Iconfefs I fee no reafon to believe, only to gaintime by the difficulty of executing them, and toprepare for making war, whenever the death ofthe king of Spain ffiould alarm mankind, androufe his own fubjeds out of their inadivity andtiegled of foreign interefts, if fo, he was difap-pointed in that too ; for France took polTeffion ofthe whole monarchy at once, and with univerfalConcurrence, at lead without oppofition or diffi-culty, in favor of the duke of Anjou. By whathas been obferved or hinted rather very ffiortly,"and 1 fear a little confufedly, it is plain thatreducing the power of France , and fecurittg thewhale Spanilh fusceffion to the houl'e of Auftria,