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 disrespectfully of the French king, observing that it was peculiarly incumbent on peers to treat monarchs with decorum and respect, as they derived their dignity from the crown.

Another affirming that the French king was not only to be respected, but likewise to be feared: a certain lord replied, "He hoped no man in England need to be afraid of the French king; much less the peer who spoke last, who was too much a friend to that monarch to fear anything from his resentment." The earl of Portland, apprehending that this tempest would burst upon his head, declared on the second day of the debate, that he had, by the king's order, communicated the treaty, before it was concluded, to the earls of Pembroke and Marlborough, the lords Lonsdale, Somers, Halifax, and secretary Vernon.

These noblemen owned, that they had been made acquainted with the substance of it: that when they excepted to some particulars, they were told his majesty had carried the matter as far as it could be advanced, and that he could obtain no better terms; thus assured that every article was already settled, they said they no longer insisted upon particulars, but gave their advice that his majesty should not engage himself in any measure that would produce a new war, seeing the nation had been so uneasy under the last.