inisterial Whigs
were certainly much thinned; but it did not appear that the Tory ranks
were much fuller than before. That section of the representative body
which was Whiggish without being ministerial had gamed a great accession
of strength, and seemed likely to have, during some time, the fate of
the country in its hands. It was plain that the next session would be
a trying one. Yet it was not impossible that the servants of the Crown
might, by prudent management, succeed in obtaining a working majority.
Towards the close of August the statesmen of the junto, disappointed and
anxious but not hopeless, dispersed in order to lay in a stock of health
and vigour for the next parliamentary campaign. There were races at
that season in the neighbourhood of Winchenden, Wharton's seat in
Buckinghamshire; and a large party assembled there. Orford, Montague and
Shrewsbury repaired to the muster. But Somers, whose chronic maladies,
aggravated by sedulous application to judicial and political business,
made it necessary for him to avoid crowds and luxurious banquets,
retired to Tunbridge Wells, and tried to repair his exhausted frame with
the water of the springs and the air of the heath. Just at this moment
despatches of the gravest importance arrived from Guelders at Whitehall.

The long negotiation touching the Spanish succession had at length been
brought to a conclusion. Tallard had joined William at Loo, and had
there met Heinsius and Portland. After much discussion, the price in
consideration of which the House of Bourbon would consent to waive all
claim to Spain and the Indies, and to support the pretensions of the
Electoral Prince of Bavaria, was definitively settled. The Dauphin was
to have the Province of Guipuscoa, Naples, Sicily and some small Italian
islands which were part of the Spanish monarchy. The Milanese was
allotted to the Archduke Charles. As the Electoral Prince was still a
child, it was agreed that his father, who was then governing the Spanish
Netherlands as Viceroy, should be Regent of Spain during the minority.
Such was the first Partition Treaty, a treaty which has been during five
generations confidently and noisily condemned, and for which scarcely
any writer has ventured to offer even a timid apology, but which it may
perhaps not be impossible to defend by grave and temperate argument.

It was said, when first the terms of the Partition Treaty were made
public, and has since been many times repeate