with hers, and settle between them some plan of a general peace, which might give reasonable content to all her allies, and which Her Majesty would endeavour to bring France to consent to.  She desired the trade of her kingdoms to the Netherlands, and to the towns of their barrier, might be upon as good a foot as it was before the war began:  That the Dutch would not insist to have share in the Assiento, to which they had not the least pretensions, and that they would no longer encourage the intrigues of a faction against her government.  Her Majesty assured them in plain terms, that her own future measures, and the conduct of her plenipotentiaries, should be wholly governed by their behaviour in these points; and that her offers were only conditional, in case of their compliance with what she desired.”

[Footnote 5:  Philip V., King of Spain. [W.  S, J.]]

But all these proofs of the Queen’s kindness and sincerity could not avail.  The Dutch ministers pleaded, they had no power to concert the plan of general peace with those of Britain:  however, they assured the latter, that the Assiento was the only difficulty which stuck with their masters.  Whereupon, at their desire, a contract for that traffic was twice read to them; after which they appeared very well satisfied, and said they would go to The Hague for further instructions.  Thither they went, and, after a week’s absence, returned the same answer, “That they had no power to settle a scheme of peace; but could only discourse of it, when the difficulties of the Barrier Treaty were over.”  And Mons. Buys took a journey to Amsterdam, on purpose to stir up that city, where he was pensionary, against yielding the Assiento to Britain; but was unsuccessful in his negotiation; the point being yielded up there, and in most other towns in Holland.

It will have an odd sound in history, and appear hardly credible, that in several petty republics of single towns, which make up the States General, it should be formally debated, whether the Queen of Great Britain, who preserved the commonwealth at the charge of so many millions, should be suffered to enjoy, after a peace, the liberty granted her by Spain of selling African slaves in the Spanish dominions of America!  But there was a prevailing faction at The Hague, violently bent against any peace, where the Queen must act that part which they had intended for themselves.  These politicians, who held constant correspondence with their old dejected friends in England, were daily fed with the vain hopes of the Queen’s death, or the party’s restoration.  They likewise endeavoured to spin out the time, till Prince Eugene’s activity had pushed on some great event, which might govern or perplex the conditions of peace.  Therefore the Dutch plenipotentiaries, who proceeded by the instructions of those mistaken patriots, acted in every point with a spirit of litigiousness, than which nothing could give greater advantage to the enemy; a strict union between the allies, but especially Britain and Holland, being doubtless the only means for procuring safe and honourable terms from France.