Note 21 — JOHN BRIGHT. ON THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND; DELIVERED AT A BANQUET GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. BRIGHT, AT BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 29, 1858.

Note 21, p. 168.—This must be regarded as mere conjecture, though stated as a fact. Even the formidable alliances against Louis XIV. in the War of the Spanish Succession were not able to prevent the French king from keeping his heir upon the Spanish throne. If the Bourbons, in spite of the allied armies with Marlborough at their head, were able to hold their position, they would hardly have done less if England had not interfered. To say that a union of the crowns “would have been impossible in the nature of things,” is to presume that the line of succession must have been just what it was. But this, of course, could not have been foreseen. If a disturbance of the balance of power ever justifies war, it did so in the case of the War of the Spanish Succession.