In setting about this task William was confronted with almost insuperable difficulties.  The Dutch people generally had suffered terribly in the late invasions and were heartily sick of war.  The interest of the Hollanders and especially of the Amsterdammers was absorbed in the peaceful pursuits of commerce.  The far-reaching plans and international combinations, upon which William concentrated his whole mind and energies, had no attraction for them, even had they understood their purpose and motive.  The consequence was that the prince encountered strong opposition, and this not merely in Holland and Amsterdam, but from his cousin Henry Casimir and the two provinces of which he was stadholder.  In Amsterdam the old “States” party revived under the leadership of Valckenier and Hooft; and in his latter days Van Beuningen was ready to resist to the utmost any considerable outlay on the army or navy or any entangling alliances.  They held that it was the business of the Republic to attend to its own affairs and to leave Louis to pursue his aggressive policy at the expense of other countries, so long as he left them alone.  The ideal which William III had set before him was the exact reverse of this; and, unfortunately for his own country, throughout his life he often subordinated its particular interests to the wider European interests which occupied his attention.

The work of building up afresh a coalition to withstand the ever-growing menace of the formidable French power could scarcely have been more unpromising than it now appeared.  Spain was utterly exhausted and feeble.  Brandenburg and Denmark had been alienated by the States concluding a separate peace at Nijmwegen and leaving them in the lurch.  The attention of the emperor was fully occupied in defending Hungary and Vienna itself against the Turks.  England under Charles II was untrustworthy and vacillating, almost a negligible quantity.  A visit made by William to London convinced him that nothing was at present to be hoped for from that quarter.  At the same time the very able French ambassador at the Hague, D’Avaux, did his utmost to foment the divisions and factions in the Provinces.  He always insisted that he was accredited to the States-General and not to the Prince of Orange, and carried on correspondence and intrigues with the party in Amsterdam opposed to the stadholder’s anti-French policy.  The cumbrous and complicated system of government enabled him thus to do much to thwart the prince and to throw obstacles in his way.  The curious thing is, that William was so intent on his larger projects that he was content to use the powers he had without making any serious attempt, as he might have done, to make the machine of government more workable by reforms in the direction of centralisation.  Immersed in foreign affairs, he left the internal administration in the hands of subordinates chosen rather for their subservience than for their ability and probity; and against several of them, notably against his relative