trying one. Yet it was not impossible that the servants of the
Crown might, by prudent management, succeed in obtaining a
working majority. Towards the close of August the statesmen of
the junto, disappointed and anxious but not hopeless, dispersed
in order to lay in a stock of health and vigour for the next
parliamentary campaign. There were races at that season in the
neighbourhood of Winchenden, Wharton's seat in Buckinghamshire;
and a large party assembled there. Orford, Montague and
Shrewsbury repaired to the muster. But Somers, whose chronic
maladies, aggravated by sedulous application to judicial and
political business, made it necessary for him to avoid crowds and
luxurious banquets, retired to Tunbridge Wells, and tried to
repair his exhausted frame with the water of the springs and the
air of the heath. Just at this moment despatches of the gravest
importance arrived from Guelders at Whitehall.

The long negotiation touching the Spanish succession had at
length been brought to a conclusion. Tallard had joined William
at Loo, and had there met Heinsius and Portland. After much
discussion, the price in consideration of which the House of
Bourbon would consent to waive all claim to Spain and the Indies,
and to support the pretensions of the Electoral Prince of
Bavaria, was definitively settled. The Dauphin was to have the
Province of Guipuscoa, Naples, Sicily and some small Italian
islands which were part of the Spanish monarchy. The Milanese was
allotted to the Archduke Charles. As the Electoral Prince was
still a child, it was agreed that his father, who was then
governing the Spanish Netherlands as Viceroy, should be Regent of
Spain during the minority. Such was the first Partition Treaty, a
treaty which has been during five generations confidently and