The Treaty of Partition was so recent and the risk of
accepting this bequest so great that Lewis would have hardly resolved on
it but for his belief that the temper of England must necessarily render
William's opposition a fruitless one. Never in fact had England been so
averse from war. So strong was the antipathy to William's policy that
men openly approved the French king's course. Hardly any one in England
dreaded the succession of a boy who, French as he was, would as they
believed soon be turned into a Spaniard by the natural course of events.
The succession of the Duke of Anjou was generally looked upon as far
better than the increase of power which France would have derived from
the cessions of the last treaty of Partition. The cession of the
Sicilies would have turned the Mediterranean, it was said, into a French
lake, and have ruined the English trade with the Levant, while the
cession of Guipuzcoa and the annexation of the west coast of Spain,
which was looked on as certain to follow, would have imperilled the
American trade and again raised France into a formidable power at sea.
Backing all these considerations was the dread of losing by a contest
with Spain and its new king the lucrative trade with the Spanish
colonies. "It grieves me to the heart," William wrote bitterly, "that
almost every one rejoices that France has preferred the Will to the
Treaty." Astonished and angered as he was at his rival's breach of
faith, he had no means of punishing it. In the opening of 1701 the Duke
of Anjou entered Madrid, and Lewis proudly boasted that henceforth there
were no Pyrenees.

[Sidenote: Seizure of the Dutch Barrier.]

The life-work of William seemed undone. He knew himself to be dying. His
cough was incessant, his eyes sunk and dead, his frame so weak that he
could hardly get into his coach. But never had he shown himself so
great. His courage rose with every difficulty. His temper, which had
been heated by the personal affronts lavished on him through English
faction, was hushed by a supreme effort of his will. His large and
clear-sighted intellect looked through the temporary embarrassments of
French diplomacy and English party strife to the great interests which
he knew must in the end determine the course of European politics.
Abroad and at home all seemed to go against him. For the moment he had
no ally save Holland, for Spain was now united with Lewis, while the
attitude of Bavaria divided Germany and he