essed the bounds of decency. Sir Edward Seymour compared the
division which had been made of the Spanish territories, to a robbery
on the highway; and Mr. Howe did not scruple to say it was a felonious
treaty: an expression which the king resented to such a degree, that he
declared he would have demanded personal satisfaction with his sword,
had he not been restrained by the disparity of condition between himself
and the person who had offered such an outrageous insult to his honour.
Whether the tories intended to alienate the minds of the nation from all
foreign connexions, or to wreak their vengeance on the late ministers,
whom they hated as the chiefs of the whig party, certain it is, they now
raised an universal outcry against the partition treaty, which was not
only condemned in public pamphlets and private conversation, but even
brought into the house of lords as an object of parliamentary censure.
In the month of March a warm debate on this subject was begun by
Sheffield marquis of Nonnanby, and carried on with great vehemence by
other noblemen of the same faction. They exclaimed against the article
by which so many territories were added to the crown of France; they
complained, that the emperor had been forsaken; that the treaty was
not communicated to the privy-council or ministry, but clandestinely
transacted by the earls of Portland and Jersey; that the sanction of
the great seal had been unjustly and irregularly applied, first to blank
powers, and afterwards to the treaty itself. The courtiers replied,
that the king had engaged in a treaty of partition at the desire of the
emperor, who had agreed to every article except that relating to the
duchy of Milan, and afterwards desired, that his majesty would procure
for him the best terms he could obtain; above all things recommending
secrecy, that he might not forfeit his interest in Spain, by seeming to
consent to the treaty; that foreign negotiations being intrusted to the
care of the crown, the king lay under no legal obligation to communicate
such secrets of state to his council; far less was he obliged to follow
their advice; and that the keeper of the great seal had no authority for
refusing to apply it to any powers or treaty which the king should
grant or conclude, unless they were contrary to law, which had made no
provision for such an emergency.*

* In the course of this debate, the earl of Rochester
reprehended some lords for speaking disresp