第52章 LETTER 7(7)

Whatever they became in their progress,they were caused originally by the usurpations and persecutions of the emperor:and when the Hungarians were called rebels first,they were called so for no other reason than this,that they would not be slaves.The dominion of the emperor being less supportable than that of the Turks,this unhappy people opened a door to the latter to infest the empire,instead of making their country what it had been before,a barrier against the Ottoman power.France became a sure,though secret ally of the Turks,as well as the Hungarians,and has found her account in it,by keeping the emperor in perpetual alarms on that side,while she was ravaged the empire and the Low countries on the other.Thus we saw,thirty-two years ago,the arms of France and Bavaria in possession of Passau,and the malcontents of Hungary in the suburbs of Vienna.In a word,when Louis the Fourteenth made the first essay of his power,by the war of one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven,and sounded,as it were,the councils of Europe concerning his pretensions on the Spanish succession,he found his power to be great beyond what his neighbors,or even he perhaps thought it:great by the wealth,and greater by the united spirit of his people;greater still by the ill policy and divided interests that governed those who had a superior common interest to oppose him.He found that the members of the triple alliance did not see,or seeing did not think proper to own that they saw,the injustice,and the consequence of his pretensions.They contented themselves to give to Spain an act of guaranty for securing the execution of the treaty of Aix la Chapelle.He knew even then how in the guaranty would be observed by two of them at least,by England and by Sweden.The treaty itself was nothing more than a composition between the bully and the bullied.Tournay,and Lisle,and Doway,and other places that I have forgot,were yielded to him:and he restored the county of Burgundy,according to the option that Spain made against the interest and the expectation too of the Dutch,when an option was forced upon her.The king of Spain compounded for his possession:but the emperor compounded at the same time for his succession,by a private eventual treaty of partition,which the commander of Gremonville and the count of Aversberg signed at Vienna.The same Leopold,who exclaimed so loudly,in one thousand six hundred and ninety-eight,against any partition of the Spanish monarchy,and refused to submit to that which England and Holland had then made,made one himself in one thousand six hundred and sixty-eight,with so little regard to these two powers,that the whole ten provinces were thrown into the lot of France.

There is no room to wonder if such experience as Louis the Fourteenth had upon this occasion,and such a face of affairs in Europe,raising his hopes,raised his ambition:and if,in making peace at Aix la Chapelle,he meditated a new war,the war of one thousand six hundred and seventy-two;the preparations he made for it,by negotiations in all parts,by alliances wherever he found ingression,and by the increase of his forces,were equally proofs of ability,industry,and power.I shall not descend into these particulars:

your lordship will find them pretty well detailed in the memorials of that time.But one of the alliances he made I must mention,though I mention it with the utmost regret and indignation.England was fatally engaged to act a part in this conspiracy against the peace and the liberty of Europe,nay,against her own peace and her own liberty;for a bubble's part it was,equally wicked and impolitic.Forgive the terms I use,my lord:none can be too strong.

The principles of the triple alliance,just and wise,and worthy of a king of England,were laid aside.Then,the progress of the French arms was to be checked,the ten provinces were to be saved,and by saving them the barrier of Holland was to be preserved.Now,we joined our counsels and our arms to those of France,in a project that could not be carried on at all,as it was easy to foresee,and as the event showed,unless it was carried on against Spain,the emperor,and most of the princes of Germany,as well as the Dutch;and which could not be carried on successfully,without leaving the ten provinces entirely at the mercy of France,and giving her pretence and opportunity of ravaging the empire,and extending her conquests on the Rhine.The medal of Van Beuninghen,and other pretences that France took for attacking the states of the Low countries,were ridiculous.They imposed on no one:and the true object of Louis the Fourteenth was manifest to all.

But what could a king of England mean?Charles the Second had reasons of resentment against the Dutch,and just ones too no doubt.Among the rest,it was not easy for him to forget the affront he had suffered,and the loss he had sustained,when,depending on the peace that was ready to be signed,and that was signed in Breda in July he neglected to fit out his fleet;and when that of Holland;commanded by Ruyter,with Cornelius de Wit on board as deputy or commissioner of the states,burnt his ships at Chatham in June.