ce, after
his return, had Oxford been willing. See Torcy's "Memoires" (vol. ii.,
p. 202). "Bolingbroke avoit conseille a la Reine sa maitresse de
preferer une paix particuliere a la suspension d'armes, et d'assurer au
plus tot a ses sujets la jouissance de toutes les conditions dont le Roi
etoit convenu en faveur de l'Angleterre." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 19: There is a long letter from Lord Bolingbroke to Mr. Prior,
on the subject of this negotiation, printed in Scott's edition of Swift,
vol. xv., pp. 524-529. [W.S.J.]]

In the mean time the general conferences at Utrecht, which for several
weeks had been let fall, since the delivery of Dunkirk, were now
resumed. But the Dutch still declaring against a suspension of arms, and
refusing to accept the Queen's speech as a plan to negotiate upon, there
was no progress made for some time in the great work of the peace.
Whereupon the British plenipotentiaries told those of the States, "That
if the Queen's endeavours could not procure more than the contents of
her speech, or if the French should ever fall short of what was there
offered, the Dutch could blame none but themselves, who, by their
conduct, had rendered things difficult, that would otherwise have been
easy." However, Her Majesty thought it prudent to keep the States still
in hopes of her good offices, to prevent them from taking the desperate
course of leaving themselves wholly at the mercy of France; which was an
expedient they formerly practised, and which a party among them was now
inclined to advise.

Whilst the congress at Utrecht remained in this inactive state, the
Queen proceeded to perfect that important article for preventing the
union of France and Spain. It was proposed and accepted, that Philip
should renounce France, for himself and his posterity; and that the Most
Christian King, and all the princes of his blood, should, in the like
manner, renounce Spain.

It must be confessed, that this project of renunciation lay under a
great disrepute, by the former practices of this very King, Lewis XIV.
pursuant to an absurd notion among many in that kingdom, of a divine
right, annexed to proximity of blood, not to be controlled by any human
law.

But it is plain, the French themselves had recourse to this method,
after all their infractions of it, since the Pyrenean treaty; for the
first dauphin, in whom the original claim was vested, renounced, for
himself and his eldest son, which opened the way to Philip D