England and Holland were the first to come to the aid of the young and interesting empress.  George II., at the head of his army, gained the victory of Dettingen, in support of her quarrel, in 1743; the states-general having contributed twenty thousand men and a large subsidy to her aid.  Louis XV. resolved to throw his whole influence into the scale against these generous efforts in the princess’s favor; and he invaded the Austrian Netherlands in the following year.  Marshal Saxe commanded under him, and at first carried everything before him.  Holland, having furnished twenty thousand troops and six ships of war to George II. on the invasion of the young pretender, was little in a state to oppose any formidable resistance to the enemy that threatened her own frontiers.  The republic, wholly attached for so long a period to pursuits of peace and commerce, had no longer good generals nor effective armies; nor could it even put a fleet of any importance to sea.  Yet with all these disadvantages it would not yield to the threats nor the demands of France; resolved to risk a new war rather than succumb to an enemy it had once so completely humbled and given the law to.

Conferences were opened at Breda, but interrupted almost as soon as commenced.  Hostilities were renewed.  The memorable battle of Fontenoy was offered and gloriously fought by the allies; accepted and splendidly won by the French.  Never did the English and Dutch troops act more nobly in concert than on this remarkable occasion.  The valor of the French was not less conspicuous; and the success of the day was in a great measure decided by the Irish battalions, sent, by the lamentable politics of those and much later days, to swell the ranks and gain the battles of England’s enemies.  Marshal Saxe followed up his advantage the following year, taking Brussels and many other towns.  Almost the whole of the Austrian Netherlands being now in the power of Louis XV., and the United Provinces again exposed to invasion and threatened with danger, they had once more recourse to the old expedient of the elevation of the House of Orange, which in times of imminent peril seemed to present a never-failing palladium.  Zealand was the first to give the impulsion; the other provinces soon followed the example; and William IV. was proclaimed stadtholder and captain-general, amid the almost unanimous rejoicings of all.  These dignities were soon after declared hereditary both in the male and female line of succession of the House of Orange Nassau.

The year 1748 saw the termination of the brilliant campaigns of Louis XV. during this bloody war of eight years’ continuance.  The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, definitively signed on the 18th of October, put an end to hostilities; Maria Theresa was established in her rights and power; and Europe saw a fair balance of the nations, which gave promise of security and peace.  But the United Provinces, when scarcely recovering from struggles which had so checked their