PROGRESS OF THE CONFERENCES AT UTRECHT.

The British ministers at the congress continued to press the Dutch and other allies to join in the armistice; but they were deaf to the proposal, and concerted measures for a vigorous prosecution of the war. Then the earl of Strafford insisted upon their admitting to the congress the plenipotentiaries of king Philip; but he found them equally averse to this expedient. In the beginning of August, secretary St. John, now created lord viscount Bolingbroke, was sent to the court of Versailles incognito, to remove all obstructions to the treaty between England and France. He was accompanied by Mr. Prior and the Abbé Gualtier, treated with the most distinguished marks of respect, caressed by the French king and the marquis de Torcy, with whom he adjusted the principal interests of the duke of Savoy and the elector of Bavaria. He settled the time and manner of the renunciation, and agreed to a suspension of arms by sea and land for four months between the crowns of France and England; this was accordingly proclaimed at Paris and London. The negotiation being finished in a few days, Bolingbroke returned to England, and Prior remained as resident at the court of France. The states-general breathed nothing but war; the pensionary Heinsius pronounced an oration in their assembly, representing the impossibility of concluding a peace without losing the fruits of all the blood and treasure they had expended. The conferences at Utrecht were interrupted by a quarrel between the domestics of Ménager and those of the count de Rechteren, one of the Dutch plenipotentiaries. The populace insulted the earl of Strafford and the marquis del Borgo, minister of Savoy, whose master was reported to have agreed to the armistice. These obstructions being removed, the conferences were renewed, and the British plenipotentiaries exerted all their rhetoric, both in public and private, to engage the allies! in the queen’s measures. At length the duke of Savoy was prevailed upon to acquiesce in the offers of France. Mr. Thomas Harley had been sent ambassador to Hanover, with a view to persuade the elector that it would be for his interest to co-operate with her majesty; but that prince’s resolution was already taken. “Whenever it shall please God,” said he, “to call me to the throne of Britain, I hope to act as becomes me for the advantage of my people; in the meantime, speak to me as to a German prince, and a prince of the empire.” Nor was she more successful in her endeavours to bring over the king of Prussia to her sentiments. In the meantime, lord Lexington was appointed ambassador to Madrid, where king Philip solemnly swore to observe the renunciation, which was approved and confirmed by the Cortez. The like renunciation to the crown of Spain was afterwards made by the princes of France; and Philip was declared incapable of succeeding to the crown of that realm. The court of Portugal held out against the remonstrances of England, until the Marquis de Bay invaded that kingdom at the head of twenty thousand men, and undertook the siege of Campo-Major, and they found they had no longer any hope of being assisted by her Britannic majesty. The Portuguese minister at Utrecht signed the suspension of arms on the seventh day of November, and excused this step to the allies as the pure effect of necessity. The English troops in Spain were ordered to separate from the army of count Starem-berg, and march to the neighbourhood of Barcelona, where they were embarked on board an English squadron commanded by sir John Jennings, and transported to Minorca.

ANNE, 1701—1714