ABSTRACT
Every great international conflict of old-regime Europe saw while fighting still went on contacts between the combatants aimed at achieving an acceptable peace. By the end of 1745 it was clear that the central decision of the war had been taken; and this helped to focus and concentrate efforts at peace. In the negotiations which began at Aix-la-Chapelle on 17 March 1748 the central thread was that of the Anglo-French settlement. The Dutch government, whose representative, William Bentinck, had been allowed to sign the peace preliminaries though he took virtually no part in drafting them, would ideally have liked some guarantee of its barrier fortresses in the Austrian Netherlands comparable to that of Silesia given to Frederick II. The peace terms also destroyed completely any remaining hopes of recovering Minorca and Gibraltar for Spain; and the reassertion of Britain's commercial rights in its American empire seemed an affront to its independence.
