thereafter when they saw he was going in earnest they assured her That before he could be well landed there there would be a formidable Insurrection here which the few Forces the King was to leave behind him would not be able to make head against Queen Mary upon those Assurances and that of the Weakness of our Fleet prevail'd with the French King to send out his Fleet to Sea to countenance and back this imaginary Insurrection In all which our Murmurers trick'd the late Queen and she again trick'd the French King for neither had they the Courage to rise nor had she so little reason as to hope it But the Letter intercepted about that time to her from Tyrconnel shews that she and he was upon a shorter Project and one Assassine was to do what all her Friends in England durst not Here it is I must beg leave to give my own Opinion about one of the true Reasons that I believe prevailed with the French to be at the Charge of so mighty a Fleet just upon the certain News they had received of the King 's being ready to embark for Ireland For it was then that Monsieur de Tourville their Admiral had first Orders to be ready to Sail. There has been probable-enough Reasons given for this Attempt both in some of the foregoing Papers and in another that has made a great Noise in the World under the Name of the Modest Enquiry about the late Disasters in England c. Which I am so far from contradicting that I believe they concurred greatly to turn the French Counsels that way But that accursed Project of JONES being on foot at that time and the concurring of so great probabilities of a change of Affairs in case of its taking effect there is no question to be made but that it help'd to cast the Balance for setting out their Fleet at that precise Juncture The truth is our Enemies at home could scarce be brought to believe that the King could go for Ireland in the Circumstances his Affairs then stood And indeed it was a bold tho necessary stroke for the King to attempt it King James's Friends in England had assured him so positively of the impossibility of it that the first sure Intelligence he had of His Majesty's Landing was full eight days after he was actually there for some of our Men being taken Prisoners in a Skirmish at Lâ—ghbricklane the Commander was brought before the late King and the first Question that was put to him was If the Prince of Orange was landed It 's hard to say whethet Jones went over to Ireland with the King in order to perpetrate the Villany there he had miss'd of here But this is certain Tyrconnel and the French Generals plac'd their last hopes in that Rogue 's undertaking after they heard the King was safe Landed In a Letter about that time intercepted from Tyrconnel at Ardee to the Late Queen Mary he gave her a very melancholy account of their Affairs tells her The Enemy was 40000 strong and furnish d with all things necessary That the King meaning King James was for fighting but he himself was against it and he concluded That notwithstanding of all her care of their Affairs he had now no hopes but in Jones 's Negotiation Thus a Villain was appointed to put a stop to the Fortune of the Confederates by one single Blow against him on whom the Confederacy chiesly depended And thus Heaven warded off a Stroke that carried with it the Fate of Europe This War with France notwithstanding of all the Taxes we are at to maintain it is the only true Measure but one that the English Crown has fallen into as to Foreign Affairs for the space of more than half a Century of Years It is true we have entred into it when our Enemies may be said to be in the best Posture they ever were in to deal with us But whose fault it is that they are so there is scarce any man of common sense in Christendom but knows and over and above The greater and stronger our Enemies are the greater is the necessity of the War on our part The other measure that was taken for the true Interest of England was the Triple Alliance betwixt Vs Sweden and Holland tho one of the Princes that entred into it was never hearty in it The breaking that Alliance as it was the work of those Five call'd the Cabal in concert with the French Court so it was turn'd into another Alliance the most unhappy and worst design'd that ever the English Nation made Good God! Who could imagine that England could have ever been wheedled into a League with France against a State which our Interest it was to preserve and upon whose standing or falling the Fortune of our King 's only Nephew depended All the Glory we got by that Holland War was that we began it with two of the most infamous Actions that ever was viz. The attempt upon the Dutch Smyrna Fleet and the shutting up of the Exchequer and in the sequel we were roughly treated in the only Element was our part to deal with them in at last after a great Treasure spent only to agrandize France and weaken our selves We were glad of a Peace Upon the ending of this Vnlucky War the whole Nation groaned for One with France The Parliament the People and most Princes and States about us courted King Charles to enter into it And indeed if King Charles had yielded to them this Point the French King had in all human probability been inevitably brought back to the Treaty of the Pyrenees which was all the Hollanders and their Confederates aim'd at and which is that alone that both then and now can secure the Peace and Safety of Europe But alas King Charles was too much in the snares of France to hear any such Proposal All he could be brought to was to make an Offer of a bare Mediation and even in this he was both jealous'd and slighted by the Parties engaged in the War and at last had the Mortisication to see first The Peace betwixt France and Holland made I may almost say without his knowledg and thereafter That betwixt France and the House of Austria sign'd by the Plenipotentiaries of those Crowns at Nimeguen in such a manner that the English Ambassadors could not sign it with them for a Punctilio of Honour refus d them by the Emperor The comparing of the condition France was in then and what it 's now obliges me to a Thought that I am afraid few will agree to it looks so like a Paradox I am of opinion that at that time when both we at home and most people abroad were so earnest for our declaring War with France both the French and We were in a mistake in our Apprehensions of it It is not necessary I should tell the mighty Successes we promised to our selves against them For how far we were to imitate if not to out do
our Ancestors in their so often-try'd Valour against that Nation in their own Countrey was the ordinary Talk then in England But the truth was we were not more confident of our own Success than the French themselves were of it And the fear alone of our Declaring against them brought them to a Peace If we look back upon the Posture of Affairs in France at that time we shall find it was at least as good as it 's now in this Juncture and consequently they had rather less reason to be afraid of Vs then than they have now They were during the last War safe and at ease on the Italy side the Duke of Savoy and the Switz being intirely in their Interests the Duke of Bavaria was Neutral or rather for the French the King of Sweden not only declared for them but obliged the Duke of Brandenburgh one of the most Powerful of the Confederates to return with his whole Forces from the Rhine to defend his own Lands on the other side of Germany Another powerful Diversion they had obtained upon the Spaniard by raising a formidable Insurrection in Messina which was like to spread it self not only through the rest of Sicily but into the Continent of Italy it self and therein the Kingdom of Naples Not only were they thus well circumstantiated abroad but were much more so at home in respect of what they are now At that time the French King was Master of some Hundred Thousands of the best of his Subjects whereof some Forty Thousand were esteemed the best Troops in his Armies all whom he has forced since to abandon both his Countrey and Service and many of them to take part with the Confederates against him And to add to all the advantages the French were in Possession of during the whole course of that War tho they saw the English Nation were zealous to enter into it against them yet they knew but too well That the King of England was their unalterable Friend and would never be hearty in his People's Quarrel Now how far in the course of this present War the Circumstances of France incline to the worse when compared to what they were during the last we need to more but to call to mind these few things Instead of being safe and easie on the Italy side as they were then they are now in War there Savoy being their declared Enemy and making a considerable Effort upon that Quarter Instead of the Switz's being openly for them as they were then they are now Neutral at best The Duke of Bavaria instead of being their Friend as then he is now one of the firmest and sincerest of the Confederacy against them Not only is Sueden not declared for them but both they and the other Northern Crown has assisted the Confederacy with their Troops and has been proof against all Insinuations to gain them to the French Interest or so much as to recal their Forces The Crown of Spain lies under the weight of no diversion by the French on any side but that of Catalonia which was likewise their case the last War But if the French are now in no better circumstances with respect to their Affairs Abroad than they were in the time of the last War it 's beyond all question their Circumstances at Home admit of a great many unlucky aggravations that render them a great deal worse now than they were then Their Countrey is exhausted and impoverish'd beyond expression Some Hundred thousands of that People who made the greatest Figure in their Wars have now setled themselves and all they could carry with them elsewhere And of these a great many do now help to compose the Confederate Troops and none long more to enter into their Countrey again with Swords in their hands than they The Discontents in France are raised to a prodigious height in respect of what they were some years ago And in short tho the French were sufficiently miserable then they are inexpressibly now much more so And to cast the balance for altogether betwixt the two Junctures of the Wars we are treating of Instead of a King on the Throne of England the French were assured of they have now to deal with one that 's entirely in the Interest of England and who when under a less figure scorn'd to be their Friend as long as they prov'd themselves to be the Common Enemy and Great Disturbers of Christendom There is but two things that seem to be more promising for the French in the present War than was in their Case during the last and that is The War in which the Emperor is engaged with the Turks and the French being possessed of more Towns in Flanders and Germany than they were then But laying even these in the Balance with those disadvantages I have named I hope I am not altogether out of my reckoning in saying their Case is at least no better now than it was then All this comparison I have made for two Reasons 1. To shew it was not so easie to make Head against France especially in an Offensive War as some people imagined at first And 2dly That in all human probability we may expect either now to bring France to Reason or we shall never do it And if we do it not then it 's impossible to foresee the Thousandth part of the Miseries that attend England since that is the mark that most of the Designs of France are levell'd against He that 's at pains to reflect upon that prodigious turn of Affairs in Holland in the year 1673. when after the French had render'd themselves Masters of so great a part of these Provinces that Amsterdam was within one Ace of sending the Keys of their City to the French King then at Utrecht The Prince of Orange at the age of Twenty one years with a handful of Men and those new-rais'd and ill-disciplin'd did put a stop to that mighty Torrent and in a few months not only oblig'd the French King in the height of all his Glory to quit all his Conquests on that side but by a miracle of Bravery and Conduct carried the War to the Frontiers of France it self I say He that is at pains to consider all this and at the same time the insuperable Difficulties this young Prince lay then under He may from the justest methods of Reasoning conclude That in all probability The same Prince when at the head of Three Kingdoms as well as of the Armies of Holland and the Confederates may out do what at that time all the World thought utterly impossible to be done Our Malecontents in England would fain flatter themselves with hopes that the Hollanders may come to be wearied of this War and that they may be brought to enter into terms of Accommodation with France rather than to continue it much longer at so vast a charge and under so many discouragements in their Trade Of this I see by some of their late Pamphlets they would fain
instanc'd in History I must confess the Character and Account that Learned Gentleman gives of the King meets so close with those Transactions of his Life that has hapned since that one would be almost tempted to think the Book had either been written or at least lick'd over again after this late Revolution in England was brought about But so far was it from being so that it 's committed now to the Press just as it came from the Author's Pen several years before this Revolution was either thought upon or the least occasion for it and that without his Knowledg or Review or the least Alteration Addition or Deduction of any one single sentence through the whole In reading these Curious Memoirs and the part His Majesty has in them it brought to my mind a Book of Monsieur Aubery's printed at Paris in French Twelve Years ago with Approbation of the French King entituled Memoirs pour servir a l'Histoire de Holland Memoirs to give light to the History of Holland In which there is a Character given of the present King in a few words that rather outdoes than falls short of Sir William Temple's And because Monsieur Aubery is both an Author of great account and much more that the very Design of the Book it self is mighty unfavourable to the Family of Orange and he as much an Enemy to the present King as can well consist with the Temper of an Historian I beg leave to do the ungrateful part of a Translator as to some Passages in it Let us hear therefore what a French-man a Roman-Catholick an Enemy of the then Prince of Orange and of his House and an Idolater of the present French King tells us of the Affairs of Holland during the last War and His Majesty's part therein and withal let us pardon an Air of Vanity that naturally attends a French Author when he writes of his King In Page 300 of these Memoirs he has these words as near as I can give them in English This young Prince meaning the present King then Prince of Orange has from his Infancy given the greatest Marks of his Reservedness and Moderation His Prudence augments as he grows up in years And all that pretend to know any thing of Merit that are acquainted with him do agree in this That never Prince has given the world greater hopes of himself He endured with the profoundest Dissimulation pardon the Expression from an Enemy the Injuries of the Barnevalt Faction restored in the Persons of the two De Wits waiting with a Patience and Taciturnity even beyond that of his Great Grandfather Prince William of Orange the Advantages of Time and a favourable occasion for his own Re-establishment for being deprived by a solemn Edict of all the great Employments of his Family after the sudden Death of his Father he came to be re-established in them by a contrary Edict the beginning of this War He was obliged for his Restoration to France which having about seven years ago made the greatest Conquests that has been heard of in so short a time the most part of the Frontier Towns of the Vnited Provinces and many of their Capitals Utrecht and Zutphen among others rendred themselves at the first view of our Troops Tho those Places were provided of great Garisons yet being composed of Officers and Soldiers without skill the King meaning the French saw himself Master of above Forty Places in less than Two Months time and found himself so overwhelm'd with Success not only above his Hopes but Wishes that he might say with Caesar Veni Vidi Vici I came I saw I overcame These Thunderclaps that presag'd yet others worse to come and which put the Hollanders to the greatest Consternation gave occasion to the People to complain of the ill Conduct of the De Witts and furnished a just Cause for the Friends of the House of Orange to say That there was none capable to sustain their Tottering State nor to defend them against that Powerful Enemy but the Princes of that Family And that as they had protected them before against the Tyranny of Spain there was no others able to save them from the Thunder of France The Grandmother of the present Prince a Woman of a Masculine Courage that had endured with the greatest impatience the low Ebb of that House which she had once seen in the greatest Splendour took pains to gather together all the best Friends and Dependants of the Name of Nassau which were very numerous These People displeased at their being turned out of all the Employments in their State and to see them in the hands of the Children of the Burgomasters and being back'd with the Fury of all the rest that lov'd their Countrey and saw themselves under the hazard of present Destruction by a Victorious Army in the bowels of their Countrey they came as to their last Sanctuary to restore the present Prince to the Possession of all the Dignities his Ancestors had enjoyed that is of Captain and Admiral General and Stadtholder whicb were thereupon entail'd on his Family for ever by a Solemn and Vnanimous Decree This same Author comes afterwards to tell us that before this re-establishment of the Prince of Orange The Holland Troops were such sort of creatures that places wherein there were Five Thousand Foot and Eight Hundred Horse in Garison would render themselves Prisoners of War at the first approach of the French without making the least Resistance And that Fifty Reisters of Munster would put ordinarily to Flight Three Hundred of the Dutch Horse that fled before them as so many Sheep before a Wolf But Page 311. Returning to speak of the present King and his Part in the War after his Re-establishment he expresses himself thus The Prince of Orange saw himself at the Age of Twenty One Years at the head of an Army as his Great Grandfather William of Orange had been at the same Age under the Emperor Charles the 5th And in the whole course of this War he made appear to the World so much Conduct and so much Bravery in a great many Rancounters Battels and Seiges as certainly far surmount the Actions of his Renowned Ancestors who had set a Copy for Two Hundred Years together for the greatest Captains to imitate If he had not had the unhappiness to be born in the Age of Lewis le Grand whose Power Genius and Fortune admits of no stop This Young Hero continued He with a few Troops hastily Levied and but ill Disciplin'd had the Courage to make head against this great Monarch in the height of his Fortune And his Conduct and Personal Valour in Battel made Victory for some hours incline to his scale till at last he had the consolation not to have Yielded but to the Greatest Prince on Eartb And it may be justly said of him tho an Enemy That nothing but so Glorious a Sun could lessen the Rays of this Rising Star Thus far Monsieur Aubrey and
AN APPENDIX TO Mercurius Reformatus OR THE NEW OBSERVATOR By the same AUTHOR LONDON Printed for RICHARD BALDWIN near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane MDCXCII AN APPENDIX TO MERCURIUS REFORMATUS OR The New Observator WHO the Author of the NEW OBSERVATOR is the World comes to know with a witness A Paper I always blush'd to own and which hitherto has past only under a bare suspicion of being mine an unexpected Accident has now oblig'd me to acknowledg before one of the most August Assemblies upon earth I find it 's expected I should continue to Write this Paper both upon the account it has not wanted Friends at Home and Abroad that have thought it has done some Service to the Government and that the Honourable Speaker of the House of Commons was pleased to lay no Commands upon me to discontinue it when I was before Them But upon second thoughts and mature deliberation I hope I may be forgiven to lay it down for once lest some one time or another in tracing Truth too near I may come to have my Teeth struck out Yet even the fear of this should not deter me if by all that can occur to me from the present Juncture of Affairs of Europe I did not think Their Majesties Throne was setled beyond a possibility of being shaken and therefore they come to stand in need of no man's Pen far less mine to assert their Right Tho I do not repent me to have written the New Observator yet I have found too late that I have done it under a hateful and invidious Title The Gentleman that began both the Thing and the Name in the Two last Reigns has justly entail'd upon the very word Observator an indelible stain that must needs stick to the softest and justest Pen that shall ever attempt to write again under that Name The Outrages done by him to whole Bodies and Professions of Men and to Parliaments themselves could never have been past over in any Reign but that of Two Princes that shew the World every day They scorn to establish Their Throne upon any other Basis but that of an unimitable Mercy It 's no wonder then that I 'm asham'd to have borrowed from a Paper so justly abominated by all Men of Temper a Title to any thing I wrote Tho at the same time I must say It was rather the Fault of the Bookseller I first employed than mine There is one thing more that puts me to the blush about this Manner of Writing The Gentleman that first begun it was set a-work by the late Instruments of our design'd Slavery as a Tool to lash or turn into Ridicule every Person and Thing that then stood or was afterwards like to stand in opposition to the Arbitrary Designs then on foot Here was another Misfortune like to overtake any body that should Write for a Government in time coming And they who were not acquainted with the Author of the New Observator might be I am afraid inclinable to believe him a Tool in this Government as he that wrote the Old one was in the last Which is so far a mistake that I here declare to all the world Neither any of the King's Ministers nor any about Him did put me at first upon Writing neither did they nor any body else give me Instructions Advice or Assistance in the continuing of it far less did I write for Place or Pension but out of Zeal to a Settlement that only could make these Three Nations happy I have the honour to serve a Prince that neither uses nor needs such kind of Tools All his Actions carry along with them such Impressions of Honour as his very Enemies are not proof against And there is one thing remarkable in Him that perhaps cannot be trac'd in History Never Prince has attain'd to be more Popular and never Prince has used less Art to be so I leave these Papers to take their fate and shall make no other Apology for the Faults and Imperfections that may be found in them than that most of them were written in a hurry of Business and very seldom had I time to read them over after I wrote them If any Party of Men think themselves therein hardly treated impute it to something in my Nature that 's diametrically opposite to Bigotism for if the extent of my Charity in point of Religion were known perhaps somr of the Bigots of the Age would be ready to stone me And I had rather err in the Excess than in the Want of so necessary a Cement of Human Society I am afraid I have said too much of those Papers with relation to the Author And being I am to take my leave of this kind of Writing I beg leave to subjoin a few things with reference to the Papers themselves and to the subject-matter of them The present Circumstances of Affairs in Christendom We are now in the Third Year of a War in which most Nations of Europe are some one way or another concerned but none more than these Three Kingdoms It is now that the Quarrel betwixt France and Us is not the Re-inthroning of the late King James for every body knows that that Prince's Interest is quite out of doors with the French Court But it 's a Quarrel of a far other nature that takes in all that a Nation can wish to regain or preserve In one word either we must bring France to a condition not to be able to hurt us or we must resolve to see our selves despoyled of our Glory our Strength at Sea our Trade and our Plantations in America if not to be reduced to the worst of Fates even that of receiving Laws from a severe Conqueror The last Summer the French play'd the Defensive part both at Sea and Land But there 's reason to believe this Winter will not pass without some Remarkable Attempt in War upon their side and whether that be so or not we may assure our selves it will not pass without the mightiest efforts that Crown ever made to pave a way for a Peace with some of our Allies Spain probably will be the last that ever will give ear to an Accommodation with France but if the French can but gain any one of the Confederates be sure England will be the last they will make Peace with It 's England that the French King has his eye upon if not to make it a Conquest at least to render it insignificant He only wishes a Peace with the Confederates that he may turn his whole Force against this Island And his Emissaries give it out already in some Foreign Courts That they may assure themselves of a Peace with France on what terms they please all that he requires of them being but to ask and have The French stick at nothing that can any-wise favour their Design upon England They spare no Cost to get Intelligence of our Affairs and they have fallen upon such unerring Methods to obtain it that they make
Thurlo's Clerks sitting in a sleeping posture at a Writing-Desk in a little Closet off the end of the Room who indeed Thurlo had forgot was there Cromwell fearing this Young-man might have heard what had past betwixt him and Thurlo and thereby have come to know the name of his Spy at Brussels instantly pulls out a Dagger which he wore for the most part under his Doublet with a design to kill him dead on the spot had not Thurlo with great importunity dissuaded him from it by assuring him It was next to an impossibility That the young man could hear what he had spoke by reason of the lowness of his Voice and withal That having sate up some four days before all of them together without rest it was to be supposed he was then fast asleep all the time of their Discourse Thus did that Person escape and lives in England to this day who confesses he heard all that pass'd betwixt Cromwell and Thurlo at that time but used that artifice to deceive so jealous a Master and save his own life How far the French Court gets Intelligence of our Affairs and how far they gain by our follies I shall not determine But this must be confest We could never have imagined that Crown should have made so mighty a figure in such a complicated Juncture against it if we had not seen it with our eyes It 's true their Money has done more than their Arms but the last they have made use of in Flanders to good purpose And if we consider what mighty disadvantages the Confederates lye under from the Weakness of the Spanish Frontier and their want of Magazines in the Winter both which the French possess on their part we will not think the Taking of Mons the beginning of the year or what else the French shall do now before the Confederates can be in the Field to be things of any extraordinary nature Tho it should fall out that all the Struggles for the Liberty of Europe should end in Slavery tho it should happen that the French Monarchy in the Period of the present War should gain the vertical point it has aimed at under the Reigns of its two last Kings and in one word Tho the Confederates should be forced to stoop in this mighty Quarrel to the Genius of France none of all which I hope there is any great reason to fear Yet the Character of the present King of England will be handed down to Posterity among the most Illustrious that ever was To Conquer in the Posture and Circumstances the French King is in Is but the effect of Fortune But to have struggled so magnanimously and under so many seemingly irresistible Difficulties as this King has done all along since he first entred the Stage Is the effect alone of a sublime and extraordinary Virtue It 's a pretty Passage a late Author gives us of what past betwixt the King when Prince of Orange and Him much to this purpose and by which we may perceive the Kings own Thoughts about the Difficulties he was at that time engaged with After he had given our Author a short Detail of the unlucky Circumstances the Affairs of Europe were then in and what was his share in them he was pleased to express himself thus That notwithstanding of all the unpromising Aspects that threatned him in that War yet for his part he must go on and take his Fortune That he had seen that morning a poor old man tugging alone in a little Boat with his Oars against the Eddy of a Sluce upon a Canal That when with the last Endeavours he had got up to the Place intended the force of the Eddy carried him quite back again but he turned his Boat as soon as he could and fell to his Oars again and thus three or four times while the Prince saw him And concluded he The old mans business and mine are too like one another and I ought however to do just as the old man did without knowing what would succed any more than what did in the poor man s case Tho never Prince has had greater difficulties to encounter never Prince has surmounted them with a greater Firmness of Mind And all the Strength of the French and Weakness of the other Princes of Christendom serve but the better to set off his Character This I take for certain That either Providence has rais'd him up to break the Fetters of Europe at this Conjuncture or that it will be said of him when gone with far more reason than of the Noble Roman of old Hic sub mole immensae stragis jacet obrutus Ultimus Romanorum Here lies oveowhelm'd under the weight of an Vniversal Ruin the last of those that deserved the name of a Roman They are little acquainted with the Transactions of the Age that know not how greatly this Prince has been courted into the French Interest and what tempting baits has been employed to catch him long before he came to make the Figure he now does His two Vncles thought it not below them to be employed by the French King to turn him about at a time when it could scarce have been expected he could be proof against such charming Offers as were then made him considering the lowness of his Fortune What Methods was afterwards used to remove off the Stage a Prince they found inexorable to their Insinuations I shall not here relate having a horror at the bare thoughts of them Whatever is in it it 's certain The French King has in all his Conduct exprest a more than ordinary concern with relation to this King and such a hatred as is scarce to be found among those of so elevated a Rank Ambition and Glory uses to be the grounds that animate Princes against one another But the French King has in many Instances shewed his Designs to be chiefly levelled against the Kings Person and to terminate no shorter than his life All Europe saw and laught at the mighty Rejoicings were made in France upon the False News last year of his Death And tho I am of Opinion the French Court were not so long under that Deception as they pretended to be for Reasons I hinted at in one of those foregoing Papers yet there is one thing concurred to make the French Ministers believe the reality of his Majesty's Death which we come to know but of late and that was the expected Success of that damnable Desi n of one JONES to Assassinate the King about that precise time By whom this Villain was chiefly set on to perpetrate so fatal a Blow is not as yet for any thing I know come to light but that he was to do it and that Tyrconnel kept Correspondence about it with France is but too well known by Letters under his own hand Our Plotters in England did again and again assure the late Queen First That the King 's Assa rs would not leave him at liberty to take a Journey to Ireland and
persuade themselves and others from what happen'd in the last War when the Hollanders made up a separate Peace with France But though it were a just standard of Reasoning to judge of what will be for what has been as it is not yet even as to this former Conduct of the Hollanders These Gentlemen are mightily out And their hopes are laid not only upon the weakest but upon the falsest Foundation Which will appear if they be at the pains to consider the Circumstances that oblig'd the States to enter into that Separate Peace The joint Declaration of War against them by the English and French in the year 1672. was a Thunderclap they least of all suspected and were least of all provided against The House of Orange which had for some Generations together been the Tutelary Genius of their State was now under an Eclipse And through the unlucky Conduct of a contrary Faction the Corner-stone of the Belgick Government I mean the Office of Statholder was abolish'd This paramount-Error brought in a thousand more And their Military Assairs at Land were never in so miserable a condition for want of both Officers and Soldiers that knew any thing in War It was no wonder then that People under this circumstance should rather incline to run the Ship ashore at any rate than to venture to keep her out at Sea in so ill hands But upon their returning back to their true Basis in Restoring the young Prince of Orange to the place his Ancestors had possessed with so much glory and upon their committing to him the shatter'd Relicks of ther Armies they bore up the War with heart enough especially being steel'd with the Prince's admirable Conduct and was so far from patching up a Peace with France though they had wisely done it both for them and Us with England that they continued it without interruption from the year 1672 inclusive till the year 1679. being near seven years Even then the Hollanders had notwithstanding continued the War longer if three unhappy things had not interven'd 1st They were fain to lose their Trade and the rather that the English their Rivals in it was at peace with all the Nations about them And when once Trade quits its wonted Channel for another they consider'd how hard a difficulty it is to bring it back again 2dly The Authority of the Prince of Orange was but in its Infancy and the Seeds of Jealousie that had been sowing by the Emissaries of France for the tract of several years were not yet quite rooted out Thence it was the Peace betwixt them and France was rather from the hot instances of the Populace set a work by the Prince's secret Enemies than the effect of a sedate inclination in the Members that compos'd the States-General But there was a 3d Reason that I believe prevail'd more with the Hollanders to make up that Separate Peace than all the rest and that was The unsteady and suspected measures of England during the whole course of that Affair King Charles they knew too well to believe he would ever heartily espouse the Common Interest against that of France And yet they again and again declared to his Ambassador at the Hague That if he would give them such assurances as they could rely on of his Declaring immediately against France as his Parliament would have had him to do they would continue the War cost what it would It was then King Charles's fault rather than that of the Hollanders that they made up that separate Peace And yet at their making it they made such provisions for Spain and the other Confederates that naturally made way for a general one which followed upon it If we take a view of the circumstances that the Hollanders are in at present especially with an eye to these three Motives which induced them to put an end to the last War by a separate Peace we shall find there is not the least imaginable ground to fear they will fall upon such Measures in this War as they did in the former For First Though by the continuance of this War their Trade must needs be impair'd yet they are in no hazard as they were during the last War of losing it after a general Peace comes once to be concluded Considering that the English who are the only Rivals they have reason to suspect on that head are in the same Circumstances with themselves 2dly The King of England's Interest in Holland as their Statholder was never so great as it is at this very moment The contrary Faction that oppos'd him in the progress of the last War is either now changed for him or become so insignificant as not to be able to counterballance the hundredth part of the other Scale And 3dly That fatal discouragement which attended all the former steps made for the Liberty of Europe from the temper and management of King Charles the 2d is now out of doors And the jealousies the Hollanders entertain'd of that Prince notwithstanding of all his Protestations to the contrary are now buried with him in his Grave By all that I have said and by a great many other things I have not time to say It may appear to any body of common sence that the Hollanders are in no hazard of wearying in this War so soon as some Ill-affected Persons would imagine And no People have given greater proofs of their zeal to the common Safety of Christendom nor taken truer and juster methods to that end than they have done all along But there is one demonstration that shews the hearty Affection and Zeal of the Hollanders to carry on this War and which ought perhaps to put some other People that are as much concern'd as they to the Blush They do at this very moment give to the maintenance of this VVar three times more in proportion to what we do in England as to Imposts on their Trade and Chattels And as to Taxes on their Lands and Houses they pay willingly in some Provinces above the real value and in most about three parts of four Notwithstanding of all which there is no uneasiness to be seen or felt among them upon that score and which is the more wonderful that they depend on Trade for their necessary sustentation which we do not in England But I am afraid to have said too much on this subject of the carriage of King Charles and the Hollanders in the last War Considering how lately that Excellent Person Sir William Temple has given us an Account thereof in his Memoirs A Book upon which we can never place a sufficient Value whether we consider the Matter or the Stile And wherein together with the many secret Hindges on which Affairs of that time did move VVe have the exactest and justest Idea of the present King set forth to the life and such an Idea as agrees with the whole matters of fact and that renders him a Prince of the greatest Justice Honour and Foresight that can be