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INTERESTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 421The most violent indignation on the part of Austria was thenatural result of these proceedings. But, however much incensed Austria may have felt, however loudly she protestedthat she would not tolerate any foreign troops in thisquarter, Walpole nevertheless succeeded in calming her resentment. His plan was to endeavour to steer his way clearbetween tw r o rocks, and he succeeded. When the more dangerous alternative of the two, viz. a breach with Spain, hadbeen eluded his next point was to avoid the other. ButWalpole knew the talisman by which the opposition ofCharles VI. might be charmed away. Whoever recognisedhis order of succession in favour of his daughter, his Pragmatic Sanction, might always calculate upon gaining himover, and even inducing him to make a sacrifice of his owninterest. At this price Walpole, by quietly negotiating withAustria as he had justbefore done with Spain, obtained theformal abolition of the Ostend company for England, andthe promise of the investiture of Tuscany and Parma, withpermission to send Spanish troops thither for Spain; andthe treaty of Vienna was concluded on the 16th of March,1731.In any continental state Walpole would, with such apolicy as this, in all probability have failed. England wasnow in friendship with all the world, without possessing asense of the term. Thesingle true friend in the politicalfriendship of Spain could not be permanent, since a growing cause of differences lay hid in their commercial relations ;the friendship of France was now growing cold in consequence of the treaty of Vienna, which had been concludedwithout her participationto counteract which;Fleury notonly re-established the good understanding with Spain, butlikewise showed his skill in strengtheningit. The renewedfriendship with Austria required under such relations to beseverely tried before its sincerity could be depended upon.England had engaged herself in a tissue of treaties, out ofwhich it seemed scarcely possible she should extricate herself. Had she been prepared to fulfil all her engagements,scarcely a war could have arisen in any quarter of Europein which she would not have been implicated, nay, in whichshe would not have been obliged to furnish auxiliaries inseveral quarters at once. But an insular state has certainly