the financial difficulties of France and the domestic troubles of Spain could be surmounted, and in the interval to rest satisfied with delaying the settlement of the outstanding questions with England, keeping them as a useful pretext for a rupture when a favourable moment arrived. Their only fear was lest Chatham should precipitate hostilities.[1]
"Mon but," said Choiseul to Merci, "est de ménager les esprits en Angleterre; c'est ce que je recommande sans cesse à Monsieur de Guerchy, et je m'applaudis d'être parvenu à faire suivre mon plan en Espagne. Nous aurons certainement en 1770 la plus belle arme, une marine respectable et de l'argent en caisse. Les ministres du roi travaillent avec le plus grand zèle et la meilleure intelligence à ces trois objets; c'est ce que plusieurs fois j'ai fait connoître à M. de Starenberg."[2]
In keeping with this policy of delay no real steps had been taken to carry out the demolition of the harbour of Dunkirk; while English traders were subject to numberless vexations in French ports, on the pretext that owing to the 8th and 9th clauses of the Treaty of 1713 not having been carried into effect, the remainder of the commercial clauses were void, notwithstanding the written declaration of the French Commissaries to the contrary.[3] The Manilla ransom remained unpaid, and at the same time an adverse claim was set up by Spain to the possession of the Falkland Islands.[4]
- ↑ See supra, 282.
- ↑ Extract from an intercepted letter of Merci, dated December 22nd, 1766, enclosed in one from Rochfort to Shelburne, January 7th, 1767. Merci was of the same Lorraine family which gave the two illustrious generals of that name to the Empire. He was Secretary of the Embassy at this time. Starenberg had just resigned the post of Ambassador, to become Ministre d'État at Vienna.
- ↑ See Rochfort to Shelburne, February 27th; Shelburne to Rochfort, March 13th, 1767. As to the 8th and 9th clauses of the treaty of Utrecht, see Stanhope, i. 48. The fortifications of Dunkirk were demolished and the basin filled up in consequence of the treaty of Utrecht, 1713. The same stipulations were inserted in the treaty of Aachen, 1748, and the treaty of Paris, 1763, but they always led to difficulties, the French attempting to evade their real execution.
- ↑ On the surrender of the Manilla, 1762, the Archbishop purchased the exemption of the city from plunder by paying four millions of dollars. Of this sum two millions were in bills on the Spanish Treasury, which on presentation were rejected, on the ground that the capitulation had been extorted by force and that the city had been plundered.
In 1748 an expedition was fitted out to settle the Falkland Islands, but abandoned in order to avoid a quarrel with Spain, which had protested. The Spanish right to them was, however, not conceded. Bougainville began a settlement on them in 1764, but
