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Britain's Foreign Alliances in the Eighteenth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Jeremy Black
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Extract

One of the greatest problems in the discussion of eighteenth-century British foreign policy concerns the assessment of the influence of the particular character of the British political system. British foreign policy, and thus the country's alliance strategy, was conditioned by the subtle interplay of internal processes, the functioning of her domestic political system, and the international situation. As historians are concerned increasingly to probe the nature of the domestic pressures influencing the formulation and execution of policy, so it becomes more important to define the political, as opposed to constitutional, role of Parliament and public opinion. This is of obvious significance for the study of Britain's relations with her allies. Were these made more difficult as a consequence of the distinctive character of the British political system? There was no shortage of contemporaries willing to state that this was the case. An obvious category of discussion concerned the citing of domestic pressure as a reason why concessions could not be made to foreign powers, both allies and those whose alliance was sought. This was of particular significance when ministries explained why gains made during war could not be surrendered at peace treaties and gains made at the peace could not be yielded subsequently. Their defense of the retention of Gibraltar was based on this argument. Similar arguments were used by British ministers in seeking to persuade allies to do as they wished. Diplomatic pressure on France over the state of Dunkirk or on Spain and Portugal over commercial disputes made frequent use of the argument of domestic pressure.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , Winter 1988 , pp. 573 - 602
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1988

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Footnotes

*

This article is based on a paper given at the Anglo-American Conference, 2 July 1987. I am grateful to those present for their helpful comments and to the Staff Travel and Research Fund of Durham University, the British Academy, and the Twenty-Seven Foundation for supporting my research. I would like to thank an anonymous reader for comments on an earlier draft. Unless otherwise indicated dates are in new style.

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