The History of Modern Europe

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1822. Excerpt: ... brother Don Carlos, king of Naples and Sicily. On this event, by an article in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Don Philip should have ascended the throne of the Two Sicilies, and Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, have reverted to the house of Austria, with a proviso of certain grants to the king of Sardinia. But, as Carlos had never acceded to that treaty, he assigned the crown of the Two Sicilies to his third son Ferdinand, the eldest being judged unfit for government, and the second designed for the Spanish succession. Philip acquiesced in this disposition; and the court of Vienna, through the mediation of France, permitted him to remain in possession of the three duchies, without asserting any claim to those territories. The king of Sardinia was quieted with money. These good offices on the part of Louis, added to the ties of blood, could not fail to have some effect upon the mind of Charles III., the new king of Spain; and although he had hitherto observed a fair neutrality, and been liberal in his professions of friendship to Great Britain, France, did not despair of being able to draw him into her views. She was sensible that he could not behold with indifference the humiliation of the elder branch of the house of Bourbon, or the rapid progress of the British arms in America. The last more especially excited his jealousy. He foresaw, that the Spanish empire in America, if that of France should be annihilated, must in a manner lie at the mercy of England, as no power would remain, in case of a contest between the two crowns, able to hold the balance in the New World. This reasonable jealousy, raised in the course of the negotiation, by the intrigues of the court of Versailles, and blown into a flame by the arrogance of the British minister, induced the...