Europe demanded a general peace; England and Holland desired it passionately.  “I am as anxious as you for an end to be put to the war,” said the Prince of Orange to the deputies from the Estates, “provided that I get out of it with honor.”  He refused obstinately to separate from his allies.  “It is not astonishing that the Prince of Orange does not at once give way even to things which he considers reasonable,” said Charles II., “he is the son of a father and mother whose obstinacy was carried to extremes; and he resembles them in that.”  Meanwhile, William had just married (November 15, 1677), the Princess Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York and Anne Hyde.  An alliance offensive and defensive between England and Holland was the price of this union, which struck Louis XIV. an unexpected blow.  He had lately made a proposal to the Prince of Orange to marry one of his natural daughters.  “The first notice I had of the marriage,” wrote the king, “was through the bonfires lighted in London.”  “The loss of a decisive battle could not have scared the King of France more,” said the English ambassador, Lord Montagu.  For more than a year past negotiations had been going on at Nimeguen; Louis XIV. resolved to deal one more great blow.

[Illustration:  An Exploit of John Bart’s——­446]

The campaign of 1676 had been insignificant, save at sea.  John Bart, a corsair of Dunkerque, scoured the seas and made foreign commerce tremble; he took ships by boarding, and killed with his own hands the Dutch captain of the Neptune, who offered resistance.  Messina, in revolt against the Spaniards, had given herself up to France; the Duke of Vivonne, brother of Madame de Montespan, who had been sent thither as governor, had extended his conquests; Duquesne, quite young still, had triumphantly maintained the glory of France against the great Ruyter, who had been mortally wounded off Catana; on the 21st of April.  But already the possession of Sicily was becoming precarious, and these distant successes had paled before the brilliant campaign of 1677; the capture of Valenciennes, Cambrai, and St. Omer, the defence of Lorraine, the victory of Cassel, gained over the Prince of Orange, had confirmed the king in his intentions.  “We have done all that we were able and bound to do,” wrote William of Orange to the Estates, on the 13th of April, 1677, “and we are very sorry to be obliged to tell your High Mightinesses that it has not pleased God to bless on this occasion the arms of the state under our guidance.”

[Illustration:  Duquesne victorious over Ruyter—–­446a]