Selected quad for the lemma: war_n
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B24213
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The History of the treaty at Nimueguen with remarks on the interest of Europe in relation to that affair / translated out of French.
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Courchetet d'Esnans, Luc, 1695-1776.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing H2187A; ESTC R23154
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120,902
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300
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sixth year of his age He was a fat man of great judgment and had done his Master very good service in several imployments Mr. de Blaspiel his Colleague remained sole Ambassador at Nimueguen he is as honest and civil a man as lives and loves company and good cheer but his best quality is that he perfectly understands the interests of the Elector his Master and is wholly devoted thereunto The Elector of Brandenbourg having defrayed the charges of his Ambassadors by a Steward of the Embassie which for the first year amounted to forty thousand Crowns their allowances were regulated for the future In the mean time the French King began the Campagn with his whole Houshold which never appeared in better order nor richer Equipage but the better to cover the design which he intended he carried with him the Queen and all the Ladies of Court as far as Metz whilst several bodies of his Armies kept at the same time Luxembourg Namur Charlemont Mâ—ns and Ypres the best provided places of the Low-countries as it were blocked up in so much that the Confederate-forces being divided for the preservation of these Towns were in no condition to bring relief to any of them March 1677 8 the French themselves were no less surprized than all the Confederates were when the King leaving the Queen crossed so many Countrys in so great haste that on the fourth of March he came before Ghent which by orders from him was invested the first of that month The besieged to no purpose cut their Dikes and drowned part of the Country for the King lodged his forces and pressed so vigorously the siege that in a few days the Town and Cittadel were both carried It is hard to be expressed what trouble the taking of Ghent put all Holland into They saw to their astonishment that the French who were remote on the one side approached on the other At London all the Confederates exaggerated the importance of that loss that they might excite England to a speedy and open declaration whilst the French King pursuing his conquests caused Ypres to be besieged on the 15 of March and in a few days took it though the Garison made a brave resistance The Treaty was now more than ever damped at Nimueguen so great prosperities stopt the mouths of all the Confederates Ambassadors though the French seemed nothing elevated thereby The same prosperities had great impressions on Holland the people tired out with the War and alarmed by the conquests that were made on their frontiers minded nothing but peace They reflected on the flourishing condition that the United Provinces were in before the War they saw their Treasure exhausted and the inhabitants unable any longer to support the great Impositions and Taxes of the Two hundred peny which had been raised seven times in one year And therefore the Heer Beverning pressingly urged the Ambassadors of the Confederates being vexed to see them still flatter themselves with vain hopes when the only refuge they now had was the declaration of England and indeed that was the thing they wholly applied themselves to without advancing one step towards the peace Mr. Oliver Krantz who the year before went into Suedeland to receive new Instructions from the King his Master with whom the Danes hindered the commerce of Letters was come back to Nimueguen where he found affairs as backward as when he parted from thence and besides a great driness betwixt his Colleague and the French Ambassadors by reason of a difference that had happened between the Countess of Oxenstierne and Madam Colbert the Countess after her Lving-in having been pleased to render her first visit to the Ambassador of Spain's Lady That procedure offended Madam Colbert who twice afterward refused the visit of my Lady Oxenstierne upon pretext of feigned indispositions which hinder'd her not at the same time to receive the visits of several other Ladies This published the ground of the difference which might easily have been adjusted had it happened between persons of other humours of whom the gravity of the one and the frank humour of the other would hardly agree together And that was the reason that the difference of those two Ladies and the driness betwixt the French Ambassadors and the first Ambassador of Sueden lasted even till the end of the Treaty The Tragical death of the Ambassador of Denmark's Ladies brother was also the cause that that Lady visited my Lady Oxenstierne no more Her brother had a Settlement in Schoâ—en where he was accused of keeping inteâ—â—igence with the Danes against the service oâ— Sueden he was brought before a Council of War and there sentenced to be shot to death by four Ensigns The King of Sueden offered him a pardon if he would have acknowledged himself guilty of Treason but the poor Gentleman chose rather to dye and with extraordinary generosity caused fifty Ducats a piece to be given to the four Ensigns that shot him to death The news of that did so afflict the Ambassadors Lady that afterwards she could not so much as endure the sight of a Suede The Baron of Platen Envoy from the Duke of Osnabrug arrived on the 30th at Nimueguen but seeing the House of Lunenbourg had not obtained the title and rank of Ambassador for their Ministers Baron Platen thought that taking the title of Plenipotentiary Minister he might obtain an equality with the Ambassadors of the Powers that came after Crowned heads But he succeeded not in his pretensions though by a liberal expence he did his Master credit April 1678. At the time when there was no tâ—lk at Nimueguen but of the disposition that was in England of openly favouring the Confederates and reducing France to receive the Law it may be said that the French King at the same time gave it to all Europe by the Propositions that he made the 9th of April wherein he declared the conditions on which he was willing to make peace with all those with whom he was engaged in War and whereupon his Majesty fixed as the last point he would condescend to and upon which his Enemies might chuse Peace or War provided they did it before the tenth of May beyond which time he would not be engaged to stand to those conditions I will not here insert a particular relation of these conditions neither of the Memoirs of the Treaty nor of the Treaties that were concluded because they have been already published I shall only say that the Propositions of the 9th of April were the beginning of the Negotiation of peace and the scantling according to which all the Treaties have been concluded and signed though at first nothing appeared more remote from it nor yet afterward until the day that the conditions were in general accepted The Imperialists of all others seemed the least inclined to yeild to those conditions The first which required full satisfaction to be made to Sueden was insupportable to the Northern Princes The Spaniards and other Confederates found
upon those new-begun overtures for his Majesty of Great Britain had occasion to employ him elsewhere About the end of the same month Jan. 1676 7. the Ambassadors of the Confederates began to meet and for that purpose they chose 〈◊〉 Apartment in the little Town-hall which is contiguous to and has passages into the great Hall It is in that place where the Deputies of the Province of Gelderland for the Precincts of Nimueguen do ordinarily meet Feb. 1676 7. The French Ambassadors had no sooner notice of these proceedings of the Confederates but they complained of them to the Ambassadors of the States-General alledging that in a Neutral Town equally common to all the Ambassadors some of them could not appropriate to themselves a publick place to the prejudice of the rest without a breach of the Neutrality The Dutch Ambassadors had good reason to chuse a publick place for Conferences well knowing that they would be managed with greater liberty there than at the Houses of the Imperial Ambassadors who would have affected to be the Dictators In the mean time to content the French Ambassadors they gave them the choice of what place they pleased in the great Town-hall whither they went to pitch upon the place which they found most convenient to meet in when they thought fit though they being by themselves and having none to confer with but the Ambassadors of Sueden they needed no such Apartment and it is probable that if the Ministers of the Confederates had foreseen that the French Ambassadors should have disposed of the Town-Hall they would not have pitched upon the place which they had chosen The most remarkable passage that happened in the Assembly of the Confederates was that after the Count of Kinski who as Ambassador from the Emperor had taken his place at the upper end of the Table the Ambassador of Denmark contended with the Spanish Ambassador for the next place on the right hand insomuch that Don Pedro de Ronquillo was forced to consent to have it only by turns and for deciding which of the two should have it at their first sitting they behoved to cast lots for it whereby it fell to the Danish Ambassador The same difficulty arose betwixt the Ambassadors of the Elector of Brandenbourg and those of the States-General who although they were at home yet would not yield it insomuch that this difference was determined in the same manner as the former The Forces of the French King began already to break into Flanders notwithstanding the coldness of the season and the talk was that some considerable siege would be speedily made On the other side the French King put the frontiers of Germany out of a condition of being able to furnish provisions to any great Army with which he was threatned from thence And the Elector of Brandenbourg had lately before made a Declaration to the Diet at Ratisbon whereby he quashed the hopes that the Confederates had conceived after the death of the Electoress of his joyning his forces with those of the Empire against the Power of France That Prince declared that he never had consented to the War into which the Empire was engaged upon occasion of the Dutch War He protested he was so far from contributing to it on his part that he had Twenty thousand men in readiness to act against those that should refuse a Peace and that he would punctually observe the Treaties of Westphalia on which the safety and repose of the Empire depended Which was a sufficient Declaration in favour of France that seemed to demand no more in Germany The twentieth of February Mr. Stratman the third of the Emperors Ambassadors arrived at Nimeguen at which time all the difficulties that were started about the communication of the Plenary Commissions began to be determined and no better expedient could be found to effect this than to reduce all the Plenary Comssions into one and the same form as to the â—aterial and essential words according to â—he stile and use of the Chanâ—elory of France The five chief Confederates to wit the Emperor King of Spain King of Denmark States of Holland and the Elector of Brandenbourg desired that in respect of them severally the French Ambassadors might have five particular Commissions But the French would only procure two one for treating with the Catholick Princes in which the Mediation of the Pope was mentioned and the other for the Protestant Princes who owned not that Mediation and they absolutely refused to present one for the Elector of Brandenburgh lest that all the other Princes of the Empire should pretend to the like But upon promise that no other Commission should be demanded the French Ambassadors judging it the interest of the King their Master to treat separately with the Confederates they were not so stiff in that matter and the rather especially that they might thwart the Count of Kinski who would have managed the interests of all the Confederates and deprived them of the liberty of acting by themselves The Danish Ambassador was the most scrupulous about these Plenary Commissions he stood upon the giving of his in the Danish language if he must have that of the Frencâ— in French or that if he gave his in Latin he pretended that the French Ambassadors should give him theirs in the same language He alledged that the King his Master stood not on the same foot as heretofore and that he might very well challenge a right of establishing a new custome But the Danes got nothing by this they were fain to condescend to the old way which is that the French Ministers speak to them in French and that they answer them in Latin On the 3d of March 1676 7. all the Ambassadors gave in their propositions of peace to the Mediators whereby the pretensions of all the powers concerned in the war were made known and on the 5th they were interchanged by the Meditors The Emperors propositions were that the â—ing and Kingdom of France should reâ—ore to the Emperour and the Empire and to â—ll the Confederates all that had been taâ—en from them that they should have reparation for all damages that they had suffered and that peace should be re-established upon the best and surest grounds that possibly could be devised France proposed to the Emperour and Empire that the King having not desired any thing more passionately than the religious observation of the Treaties of Westphalia his Majesty would gladly see Germany a second time owe the restitution of its repose to the observation of the same Treaties and for that effect his Majesty demanded that they might be fully and intirely re-established Spain demanded that France would wholly restore whatevâ—r had been taken in the Kingdoms of Spain since the year 1665. That all Ammunition and Artillery taken either by Sea or Land should be rendered back again That all places ruined demolished or burnt should be repaired That the French King should give compleat satisfaction to all the