UTRECHT, PEACE OF. The general designa tion for a number of treaties which were con cluded between the years 1713 and 1715 and brought to an end the War of the Spanish Suc cession. (See SUCCESSION WARS.) On April 13, 1713, peace was signed at LTtrecht between France on the one hand and England, Holland, Prussia, Savoy, and Portugal on the other. Spain concluded treaties with England, July 13, with Savoy. August 13, with Holland, June 26, 1714, and with Portugal, February 6, 1715. The treaty between France and Austria was signed at Rastadt. March 7, 1714, and this was adhered to by the Empire at Baden in September. The most important provisions of the various treaties were as follows: Philip V., of the House of Bour bon, was recognized as King of Spain and the Indies, but it was stipulated that the crowns of Spain and France should never be united in the same person. Spain ceded to the Emperor Naples, the Milanese, Sardinia, and the Nether ,lands; to England, Gibraltar and Minorca; to Savoy, the island of Sicily; to Prussia. Upper Gelderland. France surrendered its hold on Lorraine and gave up Kehl, Breisach, and Frei burg on the right bank of the Rhine, but retained Alsace with Strassburg. To England it ceded Acadia, Hudson's Bay, and Newfoundland, with the reservation of certain rights of fishery on the Banks. Louis XIV. recognized the title of the Douse of Hanover to the English throne, and agreed to expel the Pretender from France. The Electors of Cologne and Bavaria, allies of France, were restored to their possessions. The Dutch
were given the right of garrisoning eight frontier towns in the Austrian Netherlands as a barrier against any future aggressions on the part of France. Their commercial interests were favored by the provision which kept the Scheldt closed to trade. The Prussian King received confirma tion of his royal title and the Duke of Savoy was raised to the kingly dignity. (See SARDINIA, KINODOM or.) England, in addition to its con quests from France and Spain, received from both valuable trading privileges, and in the so-called Assiento (q.v.) with the latter laid the basis of an extremely lucrative slave trade with Span ish America. The Peace of Utrecht effected the most important political rearrangement in Eu rope between the Peace of Westphalia and the Congress of Vienna. Though France received far more favorable terms than it might have been forced to accept, Europe was secured from its ambitions by the aggrandizement of its neighbors, Austria and Holland on the north, Prussia on the cast, and Savor on the southeast. With Utrecht the last two Powers definitely entered upon the line of development which was to result in a united Germany and a united Italy in the nineteenth century. From Utrecht dates England's marvelous commercial and colonial growth. Consult Histoirc r/u congrils ct rlc he paix d'Utrecht COM MC aussi de celle de Rastatt ct do Bade (Utrecht, 1716).