Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The war had broken out originally between the French Louis XIV and the Austrian Holy Roman Empire over the competing claims of the Bourbon and Habsburg dynasties to the throne of Spain in 1701. Austria had objected to the succession of Louis XIV's grandson as Phillip V of Spain, fearing that this would augment France's already extensive power and even unite Spain and France against her. Gradually other nations--Britain, the Dutch provinces, Savoy, and Denmark--joined together to form a grand anti-French coalition. . . . The escalating cost of the war, in both financial and humanitarian terms (400,000 died), for no real strategic gain led to the British 'war party', the Whigs, being replaced with a pro-peace Tory administration . . . who began secret negotiations with France in 1710 to end the war. Within the terms of the treaty, Philip V remained in possession of the Spanish throne, but France and Spain were never to be united. " Austria gained roughly what is present-day Belgium, France officially dropped its support for Britain's Catholic Stewarts, and ceded Hudson Bay and Newfoundland to Britain. Spain ceded Gibraltar, Minorca, and the slave-trading monopoly, the Asiento, to Britain.