ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how effectively under the Whig Oligarchy successive British ministries pursued the new foreign policy inaugurated by William III after 1689, and how they sought to preserve power equilibrium in those Continental theatres where Britain had interests. It shows how successfully foreign policy was used to complement domestic measures for both securing the new Protestant dynasty and advancing the commercial and colonial interests of the state between 1714 and the end of the Austrian Succession War in 1748. Nevertheless, the diplomatic relations broken off between Russia and Britain in 1719 was not restored until 1728, and it was not until Sir Robert Walpole's conclusion of an Austro-Russian commercial treaty in 1734 that British statesmen could begin to make Russia a substantive factor in their calculations. Walpole's chief reward from Charles VI for committing his country to support Maria Theresa's rights in 1731 had been a commercial one, the Emperor's abandonment of the Ostend East India Company.
