telligence that a treaty of alliance was recently concluded between the two Courts of France and Spain, and being firmly perfuaded that the articles of this treaty were in the highest degree inimical to great Britain, and that Spain waited only the favorable moment to act openly against her, he strongly urged in Council the policy and necessity of an immediate declaration of war against that power; and recommended that a strong squadron should be immediately fent to the Mediterranean, to intercept the flota actually on its paffage from Carthagena to Cadiz. In this opinion he was supported only by his brother-in-law Earl Temple, Lord Privy Seal*; and finding his influence in the Cabinet at an end, he resigned the seals, October 9, 1761-in order, to use his own words, " not to remain responsible for measures which he was no longer allowed to guide. Mr. Pitt was succeeded in the office of Secretary of State by the Earl of Egremont, descended from the famous Sir William Wyndham, and a Tory of that modified cast which now clearly appeared to be the surest and strongest ground of Court favor in the present reign. The King, in order doubtless to mollify the resentment of the late Minister, granted him a penfion of 30001. per annum, a reward which his indifference to the accumulation of riches rendered it necessary, though with some rifque to his popularity, to accept; and his Lady was created Baroness of Chatham, with remainder to her heirs male, Mr. Pitt in his own person declining the honours of the Peerage. Thus did the new Minister, or the FAVORITE, by which appellation Lord Bute was now very generally diftinguished, accomplish the great object of his wishes in a manner which reflected much less discredit upon his character than could have been previously imagined. For the determination of the Cabinet could not but be approved by the reflecting and intelligent part of the Nation, who saw no clear proofs of any intention in the Court of Madrid hoftile to Great Britain;

and

and who were of opinion, that to precipitate the Nation, already loaded with a debt of one hundred and thirty millions, into a new and dangerous war, because a treaty had been concluded by Spain with France, which might when the articles were divulged, possibly be found contrary to good faith and amity, was a mode of proceeding not to be justified by an appeal to the voice of reason, or the law of nations. It could not but be remarked, that the resignation of Mr. Pitt in prefent circumftances savored more of pride and passion than of wisdom or patriotisin-and that an opposition of fentiment in the Cabinet on such a point, did not justify him in withholding his services at a crisis which peculiarly demanded the exertion of his great and acknowledged talents. Nevertheless, after a short and vehement competition between the supporters of the old system and the new for public favor, it declared itself strongly for Mr. Pitt. On attending the King to the Guildhall of the City of London, on the first anniversary of the election of a Lord Mayor, agreeably to ancient and established custom, the air was rent with the acclamations of the multitude, whilst the Monarch himself passed comparatively unregarded, and the FAVORITE was insulted by the rudest expressions of plebeian malignity, and insolence. An unanimous vote of thanks also passed the Court of Common Council to the Right Hon. William Pitt, in the most flattering terms of respect and applause, for his great and eminent fervices.

Had the new minifters determined to avoid that rupture with Spain, for which no political necessity, or in fact any rational motive existed, they would have been entitled to indifputable praise. But hesitating between their own conviction of the inexpediency, not to say injustice of the war, and their anxious defire to support their character with the nation at large for resolution and vigor, they adopted that equivocal line of conduct which aimed at no determinate object, and which was really calculated to accelerate the catastrophe they earnestly wished to avert. On the 28th of October the Earl

of

of Egremont wrote to the Ambassador Lord Bristol, that it was highly expedient that the Court of Spain should in the present moment be apprised of the sentiments of that of Great Britain, and that the King of England had nothing more at heart than to cultivate the most cordial friendship of his Catholic Majesty; but that his Britannic Majesty cannot imagine that the King of Spain should think it unreasonable to defire a communication of the treaty acknowledged to have been lately concluded between the Courts of Madrid and Versailles, or of such articles thereof as can by particular and explicit engagements immediately relate to the interests of Great Britain, before he enters into farther negotiation on the points depending between the two Crowns; and the Ambassador is instructed to use the most pressing instances to M. Wall to obtain fuch communication as is above mentioned. The Ambassador is farther assured, that the resignation of Mr. Pitt will only animate the present Ministry to a more vigorous exertion of their powers, and that the most perfect harmony, unanimity and confidence now reign in his Majesty's councils. This dispatch being written with a view to a confidential communication of its contents to the Spanish Minister, the Ambaffador is informed in a separate and "most secret" letter, that if the Court of Spain should propose to give his Majesty solemn assurances of the innocence of the treaty in question in relation to the interests of England, he is not totally to reject the alternative, but to take it in referendum; provided always that the said assurances be given upon his Catholic Majesty's royal word, fignified in writing either by the Spanish Secretary of State M. Wall, or by the Condé de Fuentes the Spanish Minifter in London, to his Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State, and NOT OTHERWISE. The Earl of Bristol, in a letter written to the Earl of Egremont, dated November the 2d, remarks the sudden alteration of behavior in the Spanish Minister, and the haughty language now held by the Court of Madrid-General Wall declaring with uncommon warmth, that we were intoxicated with our fucceffes, and that it was evident, evident, by our refusal of the Duc de Choiseul's proposals, that we aimed first to ruin the French power, in order more eafily afterwards to crush Spain, and, by seizing the Spanish dominions in America, to fatisfy to the utmost our ambition and unbounded thirst of conquest. He himself, he said with passionate emphasis, would be the man to advise the King of Spain, fince his dominions were to be overwhelmed, at least to have them seized with arms in his subjects' hands, and not to continue the passive victim he had hitherto appeared to be in the eyes of the world. It was time, he affirmed, for Spain to open her eyes, and not to fuffer an ally, a neighbour and a friend, to receive the rigid laws imposed by an insulting victor. For this purpose he acknowledged, in reply to the requifitions of the English Ambassador respecting the purport of the late treaty, that his Catholic Majesty had judged it expedient to renew his "Family Compacts" with the Moft Chriftian King.

This fudden alteration of language and of conduct the Ambassador ascribed to the intelligence just received by the Court of Madrid, of the proposition made by Mr. Pitt, and recently discussed in the British Cabinet, of an immediate declaration of war against Spain-a meafure totally unexpected, and by which Spain, who conceived herself to be the injured party, was filled with indignation and astonishment. But the offence now given was not thought entitled to any political indulgence; and Lord Bristol, in the fubfequent dispatch of Lord Egremont, was expressly commanded, in the name of his Britannic Majesty, to demand of the Spanish Minifter an immediate clear and categorical answer to the question be fore stated; and to accompany this demand with an afsurance, that any procrastination, ambiguity or evafion will be confidered as ample and sufficient ground for authorizing his Majesty to take fuch steps as his royal wisdom shall dictate for the honor of his Crown, and the security of his people. At the same time the Ambassador is, with ludicrous incon if tency charged not to use any harshness of language which can have the least tendency to indispose or irritate the Spanish Court, or the Minister M. Wall-as if the language prescribed to the Ambassador could poffibly fail to produce that effect on the Castilian pride-but in cafe the fatisfaction required was delayed or refused, his Excellency the Ambassador was ordered forthwith to quit Madrid, without taking leave, and repair with all convenient speed to Lisbon. About the fame time that the above dispatch was tranfmittted by Lord Egremont to the Earl of Bristol, a letter was written to his Lordship by the Ambassador, in which he states, that General Wall had recovered his usual temper; and that after an amicable difcussion of the points in dispute, enforced by long and difpaffionate reasonings, they had parted with reciprocal protestations of their earnest defire to continue in peace-and a copy of the King's Speech to the new Parliament arriving about this period, the Spanish Minister highly applauded the candor and moderation displayed throughout the wholeaffuring at the fame time the English Ambassador, that he expected shortly to receive the Catholic King's commands to acquaint him with the resolutions of Spain relative to his applications. But these flattering appearances entirely vanished, when, in compliance with the express instructions of the English Court, the Ambassador in peremptory terms demanded the categorical answer required in the last letter of the Earl of Egremont, declaring, in conformity to the orders he had received, that a refusal, and evena delay of fatisfaction would be deemed an aggreffion on the part of the Court of Madrid, and regarded in no other light than as an absolute declaration of war. "I cannot," says the Earl of Bristol in his official dispatch, "defcribe the surprise M. Wall expreffed at hearing this:-he only brought out these words, • What is to follow? You have then orders to withdraw from hence? Upon the Ambassador's acknowledgment that fuch were his instructions, General Wall defired him for greater precision to put in writing what he was ordered to demand, and, repairing to the palace of the Buen Retiro, he returned,