Their lordships were to declare openly to the Dutch, “That no extremity should make Her Majesty depart from insisting to have the Assiento for her own subjects, and to keep Gibraltar and Port Mahon; but if the States would agree with her upon these three heads, she would be content to reduce the trade of Spain and the West Indies, to the condition it was in under the late Catholic King Charles II.”

The French were farther to be pressed, “That the Pretender should be immediately sent out of that kingdom; and that the most effectual method should be taken, for preventing the union of France and Spain under one prince.”

About this time Her Majesty’s ministers, and those of the allies at Utrecht, delivered in the several postulata or demands of their masters to the French plenipotentiaries, which having been since made public, and all of them, except those of Britain, very much varying in the course of the negotiation, the reader would be but ill entertained with a transcript of them here.

Upon intelligence of the last dauphin’s death, the father, son, and grandson, all of that title,[4] dying within the compass of a year, Mons. Gaultier went to France with letters to the Marquis de Torcy, to propose Her Majesty’s expedient for preventing the union of that kingdom with Spain; which, as it was the most important article to be settled, in order to secure peace for Europe, so it was a point that required to be speedily adjusted under the present circumstances and situation of the Bourbon family, there being only left a child of two years old to stand between the Duke of Anjou and his succeeding to the crown of France.

[Footnote 4:  These princes were the grandfather, the father, and the brother, of Louis XV., who was then Duke of Anjou, and supposed to be at the point of death. [N.]]

Her Majesty likewise pressed France by the same dispatches, to send full instructions to their plenipotentiaries, empowering them to offer to the allies such a plan of peace, as might give reasonable satisfaction to all her allies.

The Queen’s proposal for preventing an union between France and Spain was, “that Philip should formally renounce the kingdom of France for himself and his posterity; and that this renunciation should be confirmed by the Cortes or states of Spain, who, without question, would heartily concur against such an union, by which their country must become a province to France.”  In like manner, the French princes of the blood were severally to renounce all title to Spain.

The French raised many difficulties upon several particulars of this expedient; but the Queen persisted to refuse any plan of peace before this weighty point were settled in the manner she proposed, which was afterwards submitted to, as in proper place we shall observe.  In the mean time, the negotiation at Utrecht proceeded with a very slow pace; the Dutch interposing all obstructions they could contrive, refusing to come to any reasonable