there is nobody with me at this place. I am hunting the hare every day in the park with your dogs and mine, and have had some good sport. The rabbits are almost all killed, and the burrows will soon be stopped up. The day before yesterday I took a stag in the forest with the Prince of Denmark's hounds, and had a pretty good run, as far as this villanous country permits.

The Duke of Shrewsbury still lies ill at Woburn. I have been to see him, but have not yet been able to ascertain what he will ultimately resolve upon; he says that it must entirely depend upon the state of his health. It is evident that he has no hopes of my being able to induce Lord Sunderland to return with the consent of the whigs; I therefore cannot think of it, at least while this parliament lasts, and it is impossible to foresee when it will break up. I shall not enter upon what is passing here, for I know that Vernon informs you of all particulars.

THE EARL OF PORTLAND TO WILLIAM III.

Paris, April 2. 1698.

Yesterday I was at Versailles until evening. I went thither in the morning to ascertain from M. de Pomponne and M. de Torcy whether they had consulted the King respecting the answer which they should give me relative to the affairs of Spain, of which I had spoken to them before the holidays, and to hear what proposals they were prepared to make on the part of the King. The substance of

their reply was, that the King having considered what I had said to them in the first conference on this subject, and the jealousy which your Majesty and the nations might conceive at the union of Spain and France under the same king, he was content, 1st, notwithstanding the incontrovertible right of the Dauphin to that crown and succession, to let it be entirely separated, and to leave it to the Spaniards to choose between the Dukes of Anjou and Berry, and was willing to send either of the two, whom they should choose, to Spain, to be educated by natives of the country, without having a single Frenchman about him; 2ndly, that to secure the States and leave them the barrier for their safety, he would cede to the elector of Bavaria the hereditary possession of the Low Countries, as Spain possessed them, and that the Dauphin would renounce them for ever, for himself and his successors; and, 3rdly, that such treaties should be made for the security of the trade of the English and Dutch nations, as might be desired, and to guarantee them every kind of satisfaction.

When they had concluded, I expressed my surprise at hearing such proposals, upon which they demanded my reasons, proving that we ought naturally to feel jealous of the power of the Emperor, if the Spanish succession were united, in its whole extent, to his already vast dominions; and that in such a case we should have every thing to fear from him with regard to commerce, both by land and sea. I accordingly repeated the answer which your Majesty desired me to make on this subject,

adding that this was all I had been commissioned to say. I then requested them to give me in writing the proposals which they had just made, with their reasons at length, as this would probably be more satisfactory to your Majesty than any thing I could say, and being unwilling to add any thing of my own, or make any omissions which your Majesty would have reason to think, since I felt sure that such proposals would appear to you as extraordinary as they did to me. Upon this they stated all their reasons in support of the proposals, and such as they conceived would make them acceptable to your Majesty.

I replied that I had no orders, except to listen to them, and to report to your Majesty what should be proposed to me. Nevertheless, since they entered into arguments upon this affair, I considered it incumbent upon me to tell them my sentiments; that from the manner in which I believed your Majesty looked at matters, both in regard to your own interest and that of your kingdom and of the States, I did not see (considering the state of things in Europe) that the union of Spain to the Empire was to be apprehended as much as a union with France, which is so powerful by sea, and might do much injury to our commerce; that if the king of France intended to separate these two monarchies, by sending to Spain a prince who was the brother of him who was to be king of France, the Emperor might separate them in the same manner, by sending an archduke, brother to the future emperor. But this point was not yet mooted, inasmuch as your

Majesty had not declared yourself upon it, and that it might turn out that the son of the elector of Bavaria had more right to the crown than any other person; that it was evident that an archduke, as king of Spain, would not have more attachment to the emperor, his brother, than a Duke of Anjou or Berry would have for his brother, the king of France, but that it was clear that the electoral prince of Bavaria could not have any prepossession for either the one or the other, but would follow his own interests and those of the monarchy; that to give to the Elector as a barrier only the Low Countries, as Spain now possessed them, was in fact no better than to give him a sieve, and would by no means be the security which we desired; that, moreover, I did not see how they proposed a renunciation of the Dauphin to the Low Countries, in which we should find no more security than in that made by the Infanta of Spain (Maria Teresa) at the time of her marriage, and which the kings of France and Spain had confirmed in the most solemn manner possible; and that the Emperor had perhaps just claims to other kingdoms or countries under the dominion of Spain. Respecting the trade and interest of the nations of which your Majesty made mention, they could not but expect that your Majesty would take all possible care of them; that the Mediterranean trade would be absolutely lost whenever a French king of Spain might think proper, since he would be master of the Straits and of all the countries and ports of that sea, assisted or supported by France. I begged to remind them

that, in our previous conference on the subject, we had spoken of Ceuta, Oran, Gibraltar, and other fortresses at the entrance and within that sea, of which the English and Dutch ought to be masters; and that it was necessary that they should be assured of the commerce of the Spanish possessions in the West Indies, which was of such great importance, that they could not possibly relinquish it nor run the risk of losing it.

They said a good deal in reply, which, in fact, amounted to nothing, and which it would occupy too much time to repeat: in conclusion, they affirmed that they could not give me the proposals in writing without the King's order, but stated that there was to be a council at two o'clock that afternoon, at which they would report to his Majesty all that had transpired; and that as soon as it was broken up they would inform me of his sentiments, and therefore requested me to wait till halfpast three, when they would communicate with me. It was half-past five before they left the King; they then came and told me, that from the tenor of my conversation, of which they had made a report to the King, his Majesty judged that I was sufficiently informed upon the subject not to stand in need of having the proposals in writing; that these were merely the first ideas of his Majesty, who would be most happy to hear those of the king, my master, who must unquestionably have revolved a matter of this nature and importance often enough in his mind, to be prepared to deliver his opinion upon it, and to propose what