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CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR (CONCLUDED)
AT this period of
the Seven Years’ War two events had occurred which had a remarkable influence
on the views and operations of the contending Powers. These were the death of
Ferdinand VI of Spain, August 10th, 1759, and that of George II of England,
October 25th, 1760. Ferdinand VI, though a weak and hypochondriac, was an
amiable Prince, whose sole pursuits were music and the chase. He had always
been inclined to maintain peace with England, and the quiet temper of his wife,
Barbara, daughter of John V of Portugal, which formed quite a contrast to that
of Elizabeth Farnese, confirmed him in this disposition. Ferdinand’s chief
Ministers were the Marquis Villarias and the Marquis
de la Ensenada; but Villarias was soon supplanted by
Don Joseph de Carvajal, a younger son of the Duke of Linares, a cold, stiff,
awkward person, but of a strong understanding. Descended from the House of
Lancaster, Carvajal, from family traditions, was attached to England, though as
a statesman, he aimed at keeping Spain politically independent of any other
country. The King was a good deal governed by his Confessor, Father Ravago,
a Jesuit. But one of the most influential persons at the Spanish Court
was Farinelli, a Neapolitan singer, who had achieved a great success at
the London opera, and realized a considerable fortune. Farinelli had
been employed by the late Queen of Spain to soothe her husband’s melancholy
with his songs; he gained Philip’s favour and
confidence, who settled upon him a pension of £2,000 sterling. After the accession
of Ferdinand, he rose still higher in the royal favour.
Both the King and his Consort were fond of music, and Farinelli was
made director of the opera and of all the royal entertainments. Behind all
this, however, being a man of sense and of modest and unassuming manners, he
exercised a material influence at Court; his friendship was sought even by
Sovereigns, and Maria Theresa had condescended to write to him with her own
hand.
When the war
between France and England appeared imminent, both Powers contended for the favour and support of the Court of Madrid. Carvajal had
died in the spring of 1754; but the English party was supported by the Duke
de Huescar, afterwards Duke of Alva, and by
Count Valparaiso. Ferdinand himself was averse to the French alliance. He had
been offended by the Court of Versailles concluding the preliminaries of the
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle without his concurrence, and by its refusal to accept
his favorite sister, Maria Antonietta, as wife of the Dauphin after the
death of her elder sister, to whom that Prince had been betrothed. Huescar and Valparaiso succeeded in excluding
Ensenada, a partisan of France, from the management of the Foreign Office; but
as neither of those grandees wished to take an active part in the Ministry, Sir
Benjamin Keene, at that time British Minister at the Court of Madrid, directed
their attention to Don Ricardo Wall, then Spanish Ambassador at London. Wall
was an Irish adventurer, who had sought fortune in the Peninsula. He had
distinguished himself in the action with the British fleet under Byng off
Sicily in 1718; had subsequently entered the land service, and ultimately the
Civil Service of Spain; and was now, at the recommendation of Keene, appointed
Foreign Minister. Ensenada, in order to recover his ascendency, had endeavored
to plunge Spain into a war with Great Britain by dispatching secret orders to
the Viceroy of Mexico to drive the English from their settlements at Rio
Wallis. This attempt ended only in the dismissal and arrest of Ensenada. The neutrality
of Spain, however, became somewhat dubious. France, after the capture of
Minorca, had endeavored to lure Spain to her alliance with the offer of that
island, and with a promise to assist her in recovering Gibraltar; a sort of
underhand privateering warfare, encouraged by the Spanish underlings, had
broken out between England and Spain, which, together with the petty
discussions which ensued, had caused much irritation. Pitt took a very gloomy
view of matters after the defeat of the Hanoverian army. The English Government
was particularly alarmed by Maria Theresa having admitted French garrisons into
Ostend and Nieuport, and looked with great
suspicion on the plans of Austria in Italy. Under the influence of these
feelings, and by way of counteracting the offers of France, Pitt authorized Sir
B. Keene to propose to the Court of Madrid the restoration of Gibraltar, as
well as the evacuation of the settlements made by the British on the Mosquito
shore and Bay of Honduras since 1748, on condition that Spain should assist
Great Britain in recovering Minorca. These injudicious proposals, which were
highly disapproved of by Keene, were fortunately not accepted by the Spanish
Court; and Ferdinand preserved his neutrality till his death, an event thought
to have been hastened by grief at the loss of his queen, Barbara, who had died
a year before. Ferdinand VI was forty-six years of age at the time of his
death. His peaceful policy was stigmatized during his lifetime as unpatriotic,
but has since been recognized as wise and salutary for his Kingdom. During the
fourteen years of his reign Spain quietly improved her agriculture,
manufactures, and commerce. The enormous exactions and embezzlements of the
Court of Rome were also reduced by a Concordat with Pope Benedict XIV, January
11th, 1755; who, in consideration of a million Roman crowns, the patronage of
fifty-two benefices, the produce of marriage licences,
and the perpetuation of the Bull of the Cruzada,
surrendered all further claims—a tolerably advantageous composition.
Ferdinand, by his
will, appointed his half-brother Charles, King of Naples, to be his successor,
and Charles’s mother, Italy. the Queen Dowager Elizabeth, to be Regent till her
son’s arrival. Yet a good understanding had not subsisted between the brothers
during Ferdinand’s lifetime. Don Carlos, feeling assured of the Spanish
Succession, which, in failure of direct heirs, had been guaranteed to him by
the Peace of Vienna, and Ferdinand’s weak health and the age of his queen
rendering him pretty certain of it, had affected an independence, had caballed
with parties in Spain, and in conjunction with his brother, Don Philip, Duke of
Parma, had, in opposition to the Court of Madrid, formed a close union with
France. The hopes of that country were therefore revived by his accession to
the Spanish Throne. His arrival in Spain was, however, delayed by the necessary
arrangements for settling the succession to the Crown of Naples. At the Peace
of Vienna it had been arranged that the Two Sicilies should
always be separated from Spain; and by the Treaty of Aix- la-Chapelle, which
assigned Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla to
Don Philip, it was provided that if Don Carlos were called to the Spanish
Throne, and Philip should succeed his brother at Naples, Parma and Guastalla were to revert to Austria, while the Duchy
of Piacenza, except the Capital and the district beyond the Nure, was to be ceded to Sardinia. Charles, however, was
desirous that one of his sons should succeed him in his Neapolitan dominions;
and the Court of Vienna, wishing to conciliate the new King of Spain, did not
press its claims to the Italian Duchies; while the King of Sardinia, unable
singly to assert his rights, was compensated with a sum of money. The
Austro-Spanish Alliance was consolidated by a marriage between the Archduke
Joseph and a Princess of Parma, and another between Leopold, successor to the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and a Spanish Infanta. Charles’s eldest son,
Philip, being imbecile, was entirely set aside; his second son, Charles, was
declared Heir of the Spanish Monarchy, and Ferdinand, the third son, was
proclaimed King of the Two Sicilies, with the
title of Ferdinand IV; but as he was only eight years of age, a Regency was
appointed to govern the Neapolitan dominions till he should come of age. The
reign of Don Carlos had been beneficial to Naples, where he was very popular.
He arrived in Madrid December 9th, 1759. One of his first acts was to
dismiss Farinelli, who retired to Bologna. Wall and most of the former
Ministers were retained; Ensenada was pardoned and returned to Court, but not
to power. Charles caused his second son to be acknowledged as Prince of
Asturias.
The accession of
Charles III was followed by a change in the policy of Spain. That King had
conceived an antipathy against the English for having compelled him to desert
the cause of his House during the Italian War; and though his prejudices were
mitigated awhile by his Queen, Amelia, a Saxon Princess, favorable to England,
yet after her death in 1760 they broke out afresh and were sedulously fomented
by the French Court.
The signal defeats
sustained by France at sea, and the almost total loss of her possessions in
America and the East Indies, had forced upon the attention of the French
Cabinet the necessity for some change of policy. For the first two or three
years of the war the French had been successful in America. They had formed a
plan to reduce all the English forts in the neighborhood of the lakes; and the
capture of Oswego by the Marquis de Montcalm in 1756, when he seized a great
quantity of vessels, as well as stores and ammunition, gave them for a while
the superiority in that quarter. In the following year Montcalm captured Fort
William Henry on Lake George. But this was the term of the French success. In
1758 the British besieged and took Louisbourg,
the Capital of Cape Breton, reduced all that island, and also made some
conquests on the Lakes and the River Ohio. In the same year, in Africa, they
took Fort Louis on the Senegal, and the Island of Goree.
In 1759 the British arms were still more successful. After the reduction of
Cape Breton, a plan was formed for the conquest of Canada; the French were
defeated near Quebec by General Wolfe, September 13th, in an action in which
both that Commander and the French General, Montcalm, lost their lives; a
victory followed by the surrender of Quebec, and in the following year by the
capture of Montreal and the occupation of all Canada by the English. In the
same year Guadaloupe, and some smaller islands
also surrendered to the British arms. In the East Indies the successes of the
French and English had been more balanced; but on the whole the British arms
had the advantage.
Two courses lay
open to the French minister, Choiseul; either to make a separate peace with
Great Britain, or to fortify himself by an alliance with Spain, and to draw
that country into a war with England. He resolved to try the former of these
courses, and in case of failure to fall back upon the other. The death of
George II and accession of George III were favorable to his views. The young
King was governed by Lord Bute, an opponent of Pitt’s policy, who had
succeeded the Earl of Holdernesse as
Secretary of State for the Northern Department. George III’s English birth and
education had weaned him from that fondness for the Hanoverian Electorate which
had been the mainspring of the continental policy of his two predecessors. He
had declared in the first speech to his Parliament that he gloried “in the name
of Briton”, and thus indicated a determination to attend more strictly to the
insular interests of England. Already, indeed, in the preparing of the speech,
a difference of opinion had manifested itself in the Council. In the first
draft the King had been made to declare that he ascended the throne in the
midst of an expensive war, which he would endeavor to prosecute in the manner
most likely to bring about an honorable and lasting peace; and Pitt obtained,
with much difficulty, that, in the printed copy, the words “but just and
necessary” should be inserted after “expensive”, and “in concert with our
allies” after “lasting peace”.
Pitt, however, who
continued to direct the English counsels during the time that he remained in
office, resolved to prosecute the war as vigorously as ever, and it was with
him that Choiseul had to negotiate for a peace. As the war between England and
France for their possessions beyond sea had really nothing in common with the
continental war, except that they were simultaneous, Louis XV obtained the
consent of his allies that he should treat with Great Britain for a separate
peace; while it was proposed that a Congress should assemble at Augsburg with a
view to a general pacification. Negotiations were accordingly opened between
the French and English Cabinets in March, 1761. It must be admitted that in the
course of them the natural haughtiness of Pitt’s temper sometimes led him to
reject with disdain proposals which seemed reasonable enough. Thus, the French
minister offered to treat on the basis of uti possidetis, which was certainly favorable to England,
as the English conquests had been far more considerable than those of France.
Pitt did not object to this basis, but to the periods fixed for it: namely, May
1st for Europe, July 1st for Africa and America, and September 1st for the East
Indies. To a further French communication Pitt delayed to answer. He was, in
fact, awaiting the issue of the expedition which he had dispatched against
Belle Isle. A squadron under Commodore Keppel, with 9,000 troops under General
Hodgson, effected a landing in that island towards the end of April, but the
citadel of Palais, the capital, was not finally reduced till June 7th.
Belle Isle is small and barren; but its situation off the coast of Brittany,
between L'Orient and the mouth of the
Loire, seemed to give it importance; and it was thought that such a conquest in
sight of the French coast might, merely as a point of honor, be set off against
Minorca. Pitt now consented, in a memorial, dated June 17th, to accept the
dates of July 1st, September 1st, and November 1st, for the uti possidetis, two
months later than those proposed by France, evidently for the purpose of
including Belle Isle. Some discussion ensued, and the French Minister delayed
his final answer till July 15th. Meanwhile the negotiations which had been for
some time going on between France and Spain had been brought to maturity; and
the French memorial alluded to, of July 15th, was accompanied with another
relating to Spain. Several Spanish demands and alleged grievances against
England were brought forward for settlement, as the restitution by Great
Britain of some prizes under the Spanish flag; the liberty of Spanish subjects
to fish at Newfoundland; and the destruction of English establishments on
Spanish territory in the Bay of Honduras; and in order that the future peace
might not be disturbed by the quarrels of these two countries, it was proposed
that the King of Spain should guarantee the peace between England and France.
Pitt naturally rejected such a proposal with indignation; he expressed his
astonishment that disputes between friends should be submitted to the mediation
of an enemy, and that they should be brought forward by a French envoy, while
the ambassador of his Catholic Majesty was entirely silent upon the subject!
The French Minister, in his subsequent correspondence, dropped, indeed, all
mention of Spain; but the reply to the application which the British Cabinet
now deemed it prudent to make to that of Spain, showed a perfect understanding
between the two Bourbon Courts. The Spanish Minister, Wall, declared to Lord
Bristol, who had succeeded Sir B. Keene as English Ambassador at Madrid, that
the French memorial concerning Spain had been presented with the entire consent
of his Catholic Majesty; that nothing would induce his Sovereign to separate
his counsels from those of France, nor deter him from acting in perfect harmony
with that country. An unsatisfactory answer was also returned to Lord Bristol’s
inquiries respecting the warlike preparations in the Spanish ports.
Shortly afterwards
was signed at Paris, the celebrated treaty between France and Spain, known, like
two former ones, as the Family Compact (August 15th, 1761). This measure had
been carried through by the Duke de Choiseul and the Marquis de Osuna, the
Spanish Ambassador at Paris, in spite of the opposition of Wall. The objects
held out to Spain were, as before, the restoration of Minorca and the recovery
of Gibraltar. In the preamble of the treaty, the motives of it were said to be
the ties of blood and reciprocal esteem. The two Bourbon Monarchs agreed in
future to consider the enemy of one as the enemy of both. They mutually
guaranteed each other’s dominions when they should next be at peace with all
the world—for Spain did not undertake to reconquer the possessions lost by
France during the war—and stipulated the amount of reciprocal succors. French wars
on account of the Peace of Westphalia, as well as those arising out of the
alliances of France with German Princes, were excepted from the operation of
the treaty unless some Maritime Power should take part in them, or France
should be invaded by land. The King of the Two Sicilies was
to be invited to accede to the treaty, and none but a Bourbon Prince was to be
admitted into the alliance. But neither the King of Naples nor the Duke of
Parma acceded to it.
On the same day a
particular Convention was signed by the two Powers, by which Spain engaged to
declare war ultimatum against Great Britain, on May 1st, 1762, if a peace had
not been concluded at that date. Louis XV undertook to include Spanish
interests in his negotiations with England; to assign Minorca to Spain on May
1st following, and to endeavor that it should be assured to her at the peace.
Portugal was to be invited to join in the war, it being declared unjust that
she should remain neutral in order to enrich herself. This Convention related only
to the present war, while the treaty was to be perpetual. These treaties were
to be kept secret, in order to afford time for the American treasure-vessels to
arrive in Spain; but the English Government obtained intelligence of them. Such
a league, of course, overthrew all hopes of peace; yet the French Cabinet
continued the negotiations, and in its last memorial, of September 9th,
repeated its offers of large concessions, though with the renewed intimation
that it could not evacuate Wesel, Geldern, and the
Prussian possessions in Westphalia, nor consent that Great Britain should lend
any help to the King of Prussia after the peace. Pitt, with that high sense
of honour which distinguished him, and
which forms so favorable a contrast to the subsequent conduct of Lord Bute,
would not for a moment entertain the thought of thus deserting an ally. He did
not even condescend to reply to the French memorial, but instructed Lord
Stanley, who had conducted the negotiations at Paris, to apply for his
passports, and the negotiations terminated.
The Congress of
Augsburg had also no result. The King of Prussia objected to any Imperial
Ambassador appearing at it, as he denied that he was at war with the Empire;
nor, through the dissensions between the Catholic and Protestant members, could
the Emperor obtain from the Diet at Ratisbon authority to conclude a
peace. The Empress-Queen was for continuing the war; and her party prevailed at
the Russian Court, while Sweden was in the hands of France. The King of Poland,
whose Saxon dominions suffered terribly by the war, was sincerely desirous of
peace; but, by himself, he had little weight, and, for fear of offending his
powerful allies, he hardly ventured to display his peaceable inclinations.
The war had
continued during these negotiations. In February, 1761, Prince Ferdinand
penetrated into Hesse, but being repulsed by the French, under Broglie,
near Grünberg, March 21st, was compelled to
evacuate the Landgraviate. During the remainder of the campaign he remained on
the defensive on the banks of the Lippe. The French, under Soubise and Broglie,
attacked his right wing near Wellinghausen, July
15th, but were repulsed, and the campaign had no results, though Ferdinand had
not half the forces of his opponents. The Austrians, in Silesia, under Loudon,
assisted by a large Russian force, marched on Breslau; whilst another Russian
army, supported by the Russian and Swedish fleets, besieged Colberg. Frederick covered Schweidnitz and
Breslau by establishing a fortified camp, first at Kunzendorf near
Freiburg, where he lay six or seven weeks, and then at Bunzelwitz.
Here his small army was surrounded by 140,000 Austrians and Russians; the
latter, however, were not anxious to fight for the benefit of the Austrians,
and retired, in September, into Poland. After their departure Frederick marched
to attack Loudon, who had encamped near Freiburg; when the Austrian commander
took advantage of his departure to surprise Schweidnitz in
the night of September 30th, and made the garrison prisoners, to the number of
3,600 men. This action, and the capture of Colberg by
the Russians, December 16th, are the only memorable events of the campaign in
this quarter. Frederick’s brother, Prince Henry, succeeded in maintaining
himself against Marshal Daun in Saxony.
The year 1762
opened under gloomy auspices for the Alliance of Hanover. Spain was now added
to the opposite side. After the conclusion of the Family Compact, Pitt
had counselled an immediate declaration of war against Spain, before
her preparations should be completed; but his opinion being overruled by
Lord Bute and the King, the great Minister resigned (October 5th,
1761). He was succeeded by the Earl of Egremont, but Bute was
the virtual director of the English Cabinet. The event showed the wisdom of
Pitt’s advice. The Cabinet of London demanded, at first in measured terms, that
Spain should communicate the treaty which she had concluded with France. Wall
evaded this inquiry till the treasure had arrived from America, and then spoke
out more boldly, while the English demands also became more peremptory. The passports
of the English Ambassador were made out and delivered to him in December; on
January 2nd, 1762, England declared war against Spain; to which the Cabinet of
Madrid replied by a manifesto of the 18th of the same month.
If matters looked
threatening for England, they were still more menacing for the King of Prussia.
The retirement of Pitt had deprived him of his best friend. Bute and
the Tories denounced the foreign policy of that Minister, and prepared to
withdraw the subsidies which Frederick had hitherto enjoyed. The King of
Prussia, they alleged, neither had done, nor could do, anything for Hanover or
England, and all the resources of the country would be required for the war
with Spain. Bute was not unwilling to sacrifice Frederick for the
sake of peace, and he made a proposition to that effect, in 1761, to the
Austrian Court; but Kaunitz, who took the offer
for a snare to embroil him with the Court of Versailles, rejected it with the
more disdain, as the prospects of the Empress-Queen were then so brilliant that
she confidently anticipated the conquest of Silesia. Nay, so sure was she of an
easy victory, that she reduced her army by 20,000 men. Frederick’s own
dominions were exhausted, and he knew not where to look for help. The only
gleam of hope arose from the uncertain expectation of Turkish aid. He had
negotiated a treaty with the Porte and with the Elian of Tartary, and he was
not without hopes that they might be induced to make a diversion in his favor
by invading Hungary. Frederick’s situation seemed truly desperate. He expressed
his gloomy forebodings, his almost utter despair, in his correspondence with
the Marquis d'Argens at this period;
thoughts of suicide again took possession of his mind, and he is said to have
earned about with him the poison which was to end his miseries. But in this
extremity of misfortune he was rescued by the death of the Russian Empress,
Elizabeth, January 5th, 1762; an event which more than compensated him for the
change of ministry in England. Her extravagance was as unbounded as her
idleness and aversion to business. She would neglect all business for months
together, and could with difficulty be persuaded to affix her signature even to
letters of necessary politeness to the highest potentates.
The change of
policy adopted by the Tsar, Peter III, after his accession, was the result of
private friendship, just as Elizabeth’s hostility to Frederick had been the
effect of personal hatred, without any regard to objects of State policy.
Peter, who carried his admiration of Frederick, and of everything Prussian, to
a ridiculous extent, communicated his aunt’s death to Frederick in an autograph
letter, written on the very evening that it occurred, and desired a renewal of
their friendship. He also ordered an immediate suspension of hostilities
between the Russian and Prussian armies. Peter had formed the design of
recovering that part of Schleswig and Holstein which Denmark had gained through
the Northern War; for which purpose he meant to employ the troops opposed to
the Prussians. A truce with Prussia was accordingly signed at Stargard, in Pomerania, March 16th, 1762, and on May 5th, a
formal peace was concluded at St. Petersburg, by which the Tsar promised to
restore, within two months, all the Prussian territories which had been
conquered. It was also agreed that a treaty for an alliance should be prepared,
the conditions of which are not known, except that each Power was to aid the
other with 15,000 men. Lord Bute had endeavored to prevent this
alliance by proposing to the Tsar to choose for himself any part of Prussia
that he might desire.
Sweden, which had
suffered nothing but losses in her war with Prussia, followed the example of
Russia in reconciling herself with that country. The war had cost Sweden, the
poorest country in Europe, eight million dollars. Adolphus Frederick, had he
been so inclined, might easily have overthrown the ruling oligarchy, to which
the Tsar Peter was hostile; but feelings of piety and honor led him to respect
the oath which he had taken, and he contented himself with working on its
fears. The conduct of the negotiations was entrusted to the Queen, Frederick
II’s sister. An armistice was agreed to, April 7th, followed by the Peace of
Hamburg, May 22nd, by which everything was replaced in the same state as before
the war. These events enabled Frederick to concentrate his forces in Saxony and
Silesia. He had not only got rid of the Russians as opponents, but even
expected their friendly help; but in this hope he was disappointed by another
revolution. Peter was deposed through a conspiracy organized by his own wife
(July 9th), who mounted the throne in his stead with the title of Catharine II.
In the manifesto which she published on her accession, dated June 28th (O.S.),
she charged her husband, among other things, with dishonoring Russia by the
peace which he had made with her bitterest enemy, and Frederick, therefore,
could only expect that she would revert to the policy of Elizabeth. But
Catharine, the daughter of a Prussian General, born at Stettin, and married
into the Russian Imperial family through the influence of Frederick, was not
hostilely inclined towards her native land; and the King’s alarm at her
manifesto was soon assuaged by a communication that she intended to observe the
peace with him, but to withdraw the Russian troops from his service. Frederick,
however, persuaded Russian General, Czernischeff,
to remain by him with his corps for three days after the receipt of this
notice; and during this interval, aided by the support which he derived from
their presence—for though they took no part in the action, Daun, being ignorant of their recall, was compelled to
oppose an equal number of men to them—he drove the Austrians from the heights
of Burkersdorf. Two or three months afterwards
he took the important town of Schweidnitz (October
9th), when 9,000 Austrians surrendered themselves prisoners of war. This event
closed the campaign in Silesia. Prince Henry had succeeded in maintaining
himself in Saxony; and, on October 29th, he defeated the Austrians and the army
of the Empire at Freiburg.
In Western
Germany, Prince Ferdinand had also been, on the whole, successful. He drove the
French from a strong position which they had taken up near Cassel; and though
the Hanoverians were defeated at Friedberg, August 30th, they succeeded in
taking Cassel, October 31st. This was the last operation of the war in this
quarter, hostilities being terminated by the signing of the preliminaries of
peace, November 3rd. But before we describe the negotiations for it we must
advert to the war with Spain.
Portugal had been
forced into the war through the threats of the Bourbon Courts. Joseph I now
occupied the throne of that Kingdom. John V died in 1750, and Joseph, then a
minor, was left under the guardianship of his mother, the Queen Dowager, an
Austrian Princess. During this period Sebastian Joseph of Carvalho and Melo,
better known afterwards in European history as the Marquis of Pombai, acquired a complete ascendency over the minds both
of the young King and his mother, and continued many years to administer the
affairs of Portugal with absolute authority. He had established his influence
through his wife, the Austrian Countess Daun, a
daughter of Marshal Daun, and a friend and
confidante of the Queen. Pombai introduced
many searching reforms both in Church and State, which he carried through with
an arbitrary despotism more resembling a revolutionary reign of terror than the
administration of a constitutional minister. Like Charles XI of Sweden, he
impoverished the nobles by revoking all the numerous grants made to them by the
Crown in the Portuguese possessions in Asia, Africa, and America, for which he
granted but very slender compensation. Those who ventured to oppose his
measures were treated with the greatest harshness and cruelty; every lonely
tower, every subterranean dungeon, was filled with State prisoners. His
enlightened principles formed a strange contrast to the despotic manner in
which he enforced them. He abolished the abuses of the middle ages by methods
which seemed fitted only for that period, and proceeded in his work of reform
regardless alike of civil and ecclesiastical law. He gave a signal proof of his
severity after the terrible earthquake which, in 1755, shook Lisbon to its
foundations. Upwards of 30,000 persons are said to have perished; thousands
more, deprived of all employment, wandered about homeless and starving; the
Government stores were opened for their relief, and contributions poured in
from all parts of Europe. It was not one of the least dreadful features of this
terrible catastrophe that hundreds of outcasts availed themselves of the
confusion to plunder and commit all sorts of violence. Pombal put an end to
these excesses in the most summary manner. Guards were stationed at every gate
and in every street, and those who could not satisfactorily account for any
property found upon them, were hanged upon the spot. Between 300 and 400
persons are said to have been hanged in the space of a few days.
Perhaps the most
searching and salutary of Pombal’s reforms were those which regarded
the Church. He abolished the annual autos da fe,
abridged the power of the Inquisition, and transferred the judgment of accused
persons to civil tribunals. He especially signalized himself by his hostility
to the Jesuits, as will be recorded in another chapter. The weak and
superstitious Joseph was by nature fitted to be the slave and tool of the Romish Church;
it was only the still greater awe inspired by Pombal, combined with fears for
his own life, that induced him to banish the Jesuits. The King had formed an
admiration for the wife of the Marquis of Tavora.
The Duke of Aveiro, head of the family of Tavora,
pretended to feel indignant at this conduct, and laid a plot against the King’s
life. The story is involved in considerable mystery, and political motives were
probably mixed up in the plot. However this may be, several desperadoes were
placed in ambush at three different spots of the road traversed by the King in
his secret visits; and, on September 3rd, 1758, while Joseph was
proceeding incognito to the house of the Marchioness in the
carriage of his friend Texeira, an attempt was
made upon his life. The Duke of Aveiro himself fired the first shot
at the coachman without effect. The coachman turned back, and thus avoided the
other ambushes; but those in the first fired after the carriage, and slightly
wounded the King in the shoulder. The members of the Tavora family
were now arraigned and condemned. The old Marchioness of Tavora, mother of the King’s mistress, was beheaded; the
Duke of Aveiro was broken on the wheel; their servants were either
burnt or hanged; and even those distantly connected with the accused were
thrown into dungeons. The young Marchioness alone, who was suspected of having
betrayed her mother and relatives, experienced any lenity. As the family
of Tavora was closely connected with Malagrida and the Jesuits, Pombal seized the
opportunity to involve that society in the accusation, and to procure their
banishment from Portugal, though it seems very doubtful whether they were at
all connected with the plot. The weak and superstitious King himself was
blindly devoted to the Jesuits; Pope Clement III took them under his
protection, and Joseph at length consented to their banishment only from the
more immediate danger with which, according to his Minister, his life was
threatened from their machinations.
Pombal, among his
other reforms, had not overlooked the Earmy; but
a horde of undisciplined vagabonds, who resembled rather bandits than soldiers,
cannot be converted all at once into effective troops. Even had the Portuguese
army been better organized, it could apparently have offered but a slender
resistance to the military force of Spain, when, early in 1762, Charles III
marched an army to the frontiers of Portugal, and, in conjunction with Louis
XV, required Joseph I to join them in the war against England. They offered to
occupy Portugal with a powerful army, to protect it against the vengeance of
England; and they required an answer within four days, intimating that they
should consider any delay beyond that period as a refusal of their demands.
Joseph answered by declaring war against Spain and France, May 18th, 1762; and
he applied to England for aid; which Lord Bute, notwithstanding his
pacific policy, could not of course refuse. This step was immediately followed
by an invasion of Traz os Montes
by the Spaniards, who, aided by a French corps, made themselves masters of
Miranda, Braganza, Chaves, Almeida, and several other places; but the
assistance of an English force, commanded first by Lord Tyrawley, and afterwards by the celebrated German general,
the Count of Lippe Schaumburg, and ultimately reinforced by 15,000
men, under Generals Burgoyne and Lee, turned the scales of fortune in favour of the Portuguese. The Spaniards were not only
compelled to evacuate Portugal in the autumn, but the allies even crossed the
Spanish frontier and took several places.
Meanwhile the
negotiations for a peace between England, France, and Spain were brought to a
close by the signing of preliminaries at Fontainebleau, November 3rd. They
would have been completed earlier had not Grimaldi, the Spanish Minister,
deferred his signature in the hope that the English expedition directed against
the Havannah would miscarry. It proved
successful, and the British Cabinet consequently raised its demands. Spain,
besides the Havannah, had also lost, in her
short war with England, Manilla and the Philippine Isles, nine ships
of the line, and three frigates, and treasure and merchandise valued at three
millions sterling. She was not inclined to prolong the war, even could she have
reckoned on the continued aid of France, for which country peace was become a
necessity. France also, in the course of 1761 and 1762, had lost the West India
Islands of Dominica, Martinique, Grenada, St. Lucie, and St. Vincent, and in
the East Indies, her important settlement of Pondicherry. But the conclusion of
a definitive treaty was delayed till the differences between the other
belligerents were arranged.
Frederick, who had
concluded an armistice with Austria, but not with the Imperialists, resolved to
hasten the peace by annoying the Princes of the Empire. In the autumn of 1762 a
Prussian corps entered Franconia and Bavaria, took Bamberg, menaced Nuremberg,
and pushed on to the very gates of Ratisbon. The Elector of Bavaria, the
Bishop of Bamberg, and other Sovereigns now resolved to withdraw their
contingents from the army of execution, so that Prince Stolberg, who commanded
it, was compelled to negotiate with the Prussian commanders for a suspension of
arms. Peace was highly necessary for Prussia; Frederick, therefore, readily
listened to the overtures of Baron von Fritsch, a counsellor of the
King of Poland, and a congress assembled at Hubertsburg,
a hunting seat of Augustus, between Leipsic and Dresden, where the
Conferences were opened at the end of December.
The definitive
Peace of Paris, between France, Spain, England, and Portugal, was signed
February 10th, 1763. Both France and England abandoned their allies, and
neither Austria nor Prussia was mentioned in the treaty. While Bute expressly
stipulated that all territories belonging to the Elector of Hanover, the
Landgrave of Hesse, and the Count of Lippe Bucheburg should
be restored to their respective Sovereigns, he displayed his enmity to the King
of Prussia by making no such stipulation with regard to Cleves, Wesel,
and Geldern, but simply requiring their
evacuation by the French, who were, therefore, at liberty to make them over to
Maria Theresa. France ceded to England Nova Scotia, Canada, and the country
east of the Mississippi, as far as Iberville. A line drawn through the
Mississippi, from its source to its mouth, was henceforth to form the boundary
between the possessions of the two nations, except that the town and island of
New Orleans were not to be included in this cession. France also ceded the island
of Cape Breton, with the isles and coasts of the St. Lawrence, retaining, under
certain restrictions, the right of fishing at Newfoundland, and the isles of
St. Peter and Miquelon. In the West Indies she ceded Grenada and the
Grenadines, and three of the so-called neuter islands, namely, Dominica, St.
Vincent, and Tobago, retaining the fourth, St. Lucie. Also in Africa, the river
Senegal, recovering Goree; in the East Indies,
the French settlements on the coast of Coromandel made since 1749, retaining previous
ones. She also restored to Great Britain Natal and Tabanouly,
in Sumatra, and engaged to keep no troops in Bengal. In Europe, besides
relinquishing her conquests in Germany, she restored Minorca, and engaged to
place Dunkirk in the state required by former treaties. Great Britain, on her
side, restored Belle Isle, and in the West Indies, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Marie Galante, and La Desirade. Spain ceded to Great Britain Florida and all
districts east of the Mississippi, recovering the Havannah and
all other British conquests. British subjects were to enjoy the privilege of
cutting logwood in the Bay of Honduras. Spanish and French troops were to be
withdrawn from all Portuguese territories; and with regard to the Portuguese
colonies, matters were to be placed in the same state as before the war. This
clause involved the restoration of San Sacramento, which the Spaniards had
seized. By way of compensation for the loss of Florida, France, by a private
agreement, made over to Spain New Orleans and what remained to her of
Louisiana.
The Peace op Hubertsburg, between Austria, Prussia, and Saxony, was
signed February 15th, 1763. Maria Theresa renounced her pretensions to any of
the dominions of the King of Prussia, and especially those which had been ceded
to him by the Treaties of Breslau and Berlin; and she agreed to restore to
Prussia the town and county of Glatz, and the fortresses of Wesel
and Geldern. These places, as we have seen, were
held by France, between which country and Prussia no particular peace was
concluded; but they were restored to Frederick by a Convention between the
French general, Langeron, and the Prussian Von
Bauer, in March. The Empire was included in the peace, but the Emperor was not
even named, the King of Prussia’s object being merely to avoid the unnecessary
complications and delays which his participation would have occasioned. The
treaty had two secret articles, by the first of which Frederick promised to
give his vote for the Archduke Joseph at the next election of a King of the
Romans. The other article regarded the marriage of one of the younger Archdukes
with a Princess of Modena, with the expectation of succeeding to that Duchy,
which Frederick undertook to forward. In the peace with the Elector of Saxony
Frederick engaged speedily to evacuate that Electorate, and to restore the
archives, etc.; but he would give no indemnification for losses suffered. The
Treaty of Dresden of 1745 was renewed.
Thus, after seven
years of carnage, during which, according to a calculation of Frederick’s,
886,000 men had perished, hardly any territorial changes were made in Europe.
The political results were, however, considerable. England, instead of France,
began to be regarded as the leading Power, and the predominance of the five
great States was henceforth established by the success of Prussia. This last
result was wholly due to the genius and enterprise of Frederick II, who, in the
conduct of the war, displayed qualities which procured for him the title of the
Great. Everything in this great struggle depended on his own personal
exertions; and it is impossible to overrate the quickness, and, in general, the
sureness of his conceptions, the happy audacity of his enterprises, his courage
and endurance under reverses, and the fertility of his resources in extricating
himself from them. It must, however, be allowed that his genius must, in all
probability, have at last succumbed to superior force but for some fortunate
circumstances. These were, the wretched organization of the French armies, the
want of cordial cooperation on the part of the Russians, the desire of the
Austrians in the last years of the war to spare their troops, and, finally, the
opportune death of the Empress Elizabeth.
The part played in
the war by the Empress-Queen, though unfortunate in the result, can be
justified, as her efforts were directed to recover what was lawfully her own.
But the conduct of France, Sweden, Saxony, and Spain, and especially of France,
must be condemned as a political blunder. With regard to England, the
expediency of plunging into a continental war for the sake of the Hanoverian
Electorate alone may well admit of question. It should, however, be remembered,
that the struggle also concerned the balance of European power. The English
help was invaluable to Frederick, and Bute acted no very honorable
part in abandoning him. The Peace was highly unpopular in England, and Bute resigned
soon after its conclusion.
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