[Footnote 6:  For an estimate of Ormonde’s character see Swift’s “Enquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen’s Last Ministry,” vol. v. of present edition (pp. 428-430).  Ormonde had done very little to deserve succeeding such a soldier as Marlborough.  Indeed, his name was associated with the disgraceful expedition to Cadiz, in which he was in command of the English troops. [T.S.]]

Upon this incident, the ministers and generals of the allies immediately took the alarm, venting their fury in violent expressions against the Queen, and those she employed in her councils:  said, they were betrayed by Britain, and assumed the countenance of those who think they have received an injury, and are disposed to return it.

The Duke of Ormonde’s army consisted of eighteen thousand of Her Majesty’s subjects, and about thirty thousand hired from other princes, either wholly by the Queen, or jointly by her and the States.  The Duke immediately informed the court of the dispositions he found among the foreign generals upon this occasion; and that, upon an exigency, he could only depend on the British troops adhering to him; those of Hanover having already determined to desert to the Dutch, and tempted the Danes to do the like, and that he had reason to suppose the same of the rest.

Upon the news arriving at Utrecht, that the Duke of Ormonde had refused to engage in any action against the enemy, the Dutch ministers there went immediately to make their complaints to the lord privy seal; aggravating the strangeness of this proceeding, together with the consequence of it, in the loss of a most favourable opportunity for ruining the French army, and the discontent it must needs create in the whole body of the confederates.  Adding, how hard it was that they should be kept in the dark, and have no communication of what was done in a point which so nearly concerned them.  They concluded, that the Duke must needs have acted by orders; and desired his lordship to write both to court, and to his grace, what they had now said.

The bishop answered, “That he knew nothing of this fact, but what they had told him; and therefore was not prepared with a reply to their representations:  only, in general, he could venture to say, that this case appeared very like the conduct of their field-deputies upon former occasions:  That if such orders were given, they were certainly built upon very justifiable foundations, and would soon be so explained as to convince the States, and all the world, that the common interest would be better provided for another way, than by a battle or siege:  That the want of communication which they complained of, could not make the States so uneasy as their declining to receive it had made the Queen, who had used her utmost endeavours to persuade them to concur with her in concerting every step towards a general peace, and settling such a plan as both sides might approve and adhere to; but, to this day, the States had not thought fit to accept those offers,