Untitled - 24grammata.com

BISE OF THE CONTINENTALplayed in full force her vast influence upon the affairs of thecontinent. This alliance, and the ensuing war down to thetreaty of Ryswick in 1697, gave to the politics of westernEurope that character by which they were afterwards peculiarly distinguished. The alliance of the naval powers(England and Holland) with Austria, against that powerwhich had become equally formidable on land and seaforms the groundwork of the system, and the interests ofthese states so clearlydemands such an alliance, that political sophistry will scarcely be able to prevail against it.All the states of the continent, which had learned by experience that Lewis was desirous of increasing his power attheir expense, if not of destroying them entirely, could notbut see that this was the most natural means of defenceand it is clear from what we have above said, that the sameapplied to England.Under these circumstances it resulted from the geographical situation of these states that the Spanish, afterwardsAustrian Netherlands, became the centre of this alliance.They were, in the first place, the chief aim of the policy ofFrance : in the next, they were the connecting link betweenEngland and her continental allies.They formed the passage into Germany, the means of junction with the alliedarmies, and the conductor, so to say, by which the warmight be drawn off from the principal countries of the Austrian monarchy on their independence rested that of the;United Provinces as well as of the German empire; andwith all these points was connected the balance of politicalpower in Europe. The maintenance of the Belgian provinces was therefore necessarily one of the leading maximsof the continental policy of England a maxim in the support of which she has repeatedly and wisely exerted herbest energies. While England was thus connecting herselfon every side with the continent,it could not but followthat several smaller states should be drawn into these arrangements. But those only will require mention which werepermanently involved in them, and amongst these the first isbavoy. In 1689 the fatal activity of Louvois first compelledthe duke Victor Amadeus II. to take part in those tragicscenes which were now repeatedly acted in Europe; andthe situation and condition of his territory, which was at