Pursuant to the three former articles, Her Majesty wrote circular letters to all the allies engaged with her in the present war:  and France had notice, that as soon as the King declared his compliance with the last article, the blank passports should be filled up with the names of the Marechal d’Uxelles,[9] the Abbe de Polignac, and Mons. Mesnager, who were appointed plenipotentiaries for that crown.

[Footnote 9:  In his “Letter to Sir William Windham,” Bolingbroke thus refers to M. d’Uxelles:  “The minister who had the principal direction of foreign affairs I lived in friendship with, and I must own to his honour, that he never encouraged a design which he knew that his court had no intention of supporting” (p. 141).  This was written of the time when Bolingbroke was in Paris, an adherent of the Pretender. [T.S.]]

From what I have hitherto deduced, the reader sees the plan which the Queen thought the most effectual for advancing a peace.  As the conferences were to begin upon the general preliminaries, the Queen was to be empowered by France to offer separately to the allies what might be reasonable for each to accept; and her own interests being previously settled, she was to act as a general mediator:  a figure that became her best, from the part she had in the war, and more useful to the great end at which she aimed, of giving a safe and honourable peace to Europe.

Besides, it was absolutely necessary, for the interests of Britain, that the Queen should be at the head of the negotiation, without which Her Majesty could find no expedient to redress the injuries her kingdoms were sure to suffer by the Barrier Treaty.  In order to settle this point with the States, the ministers here had a conference with Mons. Buys, a few days before the Parliament met.  He was told, how necessary it was, by previous concert between the Emperor, the Queen, and the States, to prevent any difference which might arise in the course of the treaty at Utrecht:  That, under pretence of a barrier for the States General, as their security against France, infinite prejudice might arise to the trade of Britain in the Spanish Netherlands; for, by the fifteenth article of the Barrier Treaty, in consequence of what was stipulated by that of Minister, the Queen was brought to engage that commerce shall not be rendered more easy, in point of duties, by the sea-ports of Flanders, than it is by the river Scheldt, and by the canals on the side of the Seven Provinces, which, as things now stood, was very unjust; for, while the towns in Flanders were in the hands of France or Spain, the Dutch and we traded to them upon equal foot; but now, since by the Barrier Treaty those towns were to be possessed by the States, that republic might lay what duties they pleased upon British goods, after passing by Ostend, and make their own custom-free, which would utterly ruin our whole trade with Flanders.