esent war, as a basis
for a general negotiation of peace, in which the honor and the interest
of all parties have been consulted as far as the circumstances of time
and the present posture of affairs would admit." The Royal speech did
not contain one single word which had to do with the internal condition
of England, with the daily lives of the English people. No legislation
was promised, or even hinted at, which concerned the domestic interests
of these islands. The House of Lords set to work at once in the
preparation of an address in reply to the speech from the throne; and
they, too, debated only of foreign affairs, and took no more account of
their own fellow-countrymen than of the dwellers in Jupiter or Saturn.

{23}

The war to which the Royal speech referred had been dragging along for
some time. No quarrel could have less direct interest for the English
people than that about which the Emperor Charles the Sixth and the King
of France, Louis the Fifteenth, were fighting. On the death of
Augustus the Second of Poland, in February, 1733, Louis thought it a
good opportunity for putting his own father-in-law, Stanislaus
Leszczynski, back on the throne of Poland, from which he had twice been
driven. Poland was a republic with an elective king, and a very
peculiar form of constitution, by virtue of which any one of the
estates or electoral colleges of the realm was in a position to stop
the action of all the others at any crisis when decision was especially
needed. The result of this was that the elected king was always a
nominee of one or another of the great Continental Powers who took it
on themselves to intervene in the affairs of Poland. The election of a
King of Poland was always a mere struggle between these Powers: the
strongest at the moment carried its man. Stanislaus, the father of
Louis the Fifteenth's wife, had been a _protege_ of Charles the Twelfth
of Sweden. He was a man of illustrious family and of great and varied
abilities, a scholar and a writer. Charles drove Augustus the Second,
Augustus, Elector of Saxony, from the throne of Poland, and set up
Stanislaus in his place. Stanislaus, however, was driven out of the
country by Augustus and his friends, who rallied and became strong in
the temporary difficulties of Charles. When Charles found time to turn
his attention to Poland he soon overthrew Augustus and set up
Stanislaus once again. But "hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day";