land
was not in a condition to fulfil her compacts. The reverses of 1712,
added to Great Britain's fixed purpose to have peace, decided the
Dutch to the same; and the English still kept, amid their
dissatisfaction with their allies, so much of their old feeling
against France as to support all the reasonable claims of Holland.
April 11, 1713, an almost general peace, known as the Peace of
Utrecht, one of the landmarks of history, was signed between France on
the one hand, and England, Holland, Prussia, Portugal, and Savoy on
the other. The emperor still held out, but the loss of British
subsidies fettered the movements of his armies, and with the
withdrawal of the sea powers the continental war might have fallen of
itself; but France with her hands freed carried on during 1713 a
brilliant and successful campaign in Germany. On the 7th of March,
1714, peace was signed between France and Austria. Some embers of the
war continued to burn in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, which
persisted in their rebellion against Philip V.; but the revolt was
stifled as soon as the arms of France were turned against them.
Barcelona was taken by storm in September, 1714; the islands submitted
in the following summer.

The changes effected by this long war and sanctioned by the peace,
neglecting details of lesser or passing importance, may be stated as
follows: 1. The House of Bourbon was settled on the Spanish throne,
and the Spanish empire retained its West Indian and American
possessions; the purpose of William III. against her dominion there
was frustrated when England undertook to support the Austrian prince,
and so fastened the greater part of her naval force to the
Mediterranean. 2. The Spanish empire lost its possessions in the
Netherlands, Gelderland going to the new kingdom of Prussia and
Belgium to the emperor; the Spanish Netherlands thus became the
Austrian Netherlands. 3. Spain lost also the principal islands of the
Mediterranean; Sardinia being given to Austria, Minorca with its fine
harbor to Great Britain, and Sicily to the Duke of Savoy. 4. Spain
lost also her Italian possessions, Milan and Naples going to the
emperor. Such, in the main, were the results to Spain of the fight
over the succession to her throne.

France, the backer of the successful claimant, came out of the strife
worn out, and with considerable loss of territory. She had succeeded
in placing a king of her own royal house on a neighboring throne, but