austed, prostrate and bleeding, was taken captive and firmly
bound.

Ragotsky, denounced with the penalty of high treason, escaped to Poland.
The emperor, anxious no longer to exasperate, proposed measures of
unusual moderation. He assembled a convention; promised a general
amnesty for all political offenses, the restitution of confiscated
property, the liberation of prisoners, and the confirmation of all the
rights which he had promised at his coronation. Some important points
were not touched upon; others were passed over in vague and general
terms. The Hungarians, helpless as a babe, had nothing to do but to
submit, whatever the terms might be. They were surprised at the
unprecedented lenity of the conqueror, and the treaty of peace and
subjection was signed in January, 1711.

In three months after the signing of this treaty, Joseph I. died of the
small-pox, in his palace of Vienna. He was but thirty-three years of
age. For a sovereign educated from the cradle to despotic rule, and
instructed by one of the most bigoted of fathers, he was an unusually
good man, and must be regarded as one of the best sovereigns who have
swayed the scepter of Austrian despotism.

The law of hereditary descent is frequently involved in great
embarrassment. Leopold, to obviate disputes which he foresaw were likely
to arise, had assigned Hungary, Bohemia, and his other hereditary
estates, to Joseph. To Charles he had assigned the vast Spanish
inheritance. In case Joseph should die without male issue he had decreed
that the crown of the Austrian dominions should also pass to Charles. In
case Charles should also die without issue male, the crown should then
revert to the daughters of Joseph in preference to those of Charles.
Joseph left no son. He had two daughters, the eldest of whom was but
twelve years of age. Charles, who was now in Barcelona, claiming the
crown of Spain as Charles III., had no Spanish blood in his veins. He
was the son of Leopold, and of his third wife, the devout and lovely
Eleonora, daughter of the Elector Palatine. He was now but twenty-eight
years of age. For ten years he had been struggling for the crown which
his father Leopold had claimed, as succeeding to the rights of his first
wife Margaret, daughter of Philip IV.

Charles was a genteel, accomplished young man of eighteen when he left
his father's palace at Vienna, for England, where a British fleet was to
convey him to Portugal, and, by the energy of its