to be made for the expedition.  The naval yards were working at full pressure with the ostensible object of sending out a fleet to suppress piracy in the Mediterranean.  The stadholder felt that he was able to rely upon the willing co-operation of the States in his project.  His difficulty now, as always, was to secure the assent of Amsterdam.  But the opposition of that city proved less formidable than was anticipated.  The peril to Protestantism should England under James II be leagued with France, was evident, and scarcely less the security of the commerce on which Amsterdam depended for its prosperity.  The support of Amsterdam secured that of the Estates of Holland; and finally, after thus surmounting successfully the elements of opposition in the town and the province, where the anti-Orange party was most strongly represented, the prince had little difficulty in obtaining, on October 8, the unanimous approval of the States-General, assembled in secret session, to the proposed expedition.  By that time an army of 14,000 men had been gathered together and was encamped at Mook.  Of these the six English and Scottish regiments, who now, as throughout the War of Independence, were maintained in the Dutch service, formed the nucleus.  The force also comprised the prince’s Dutch guards and other picked Dutch troops, and also some German levies.  Marshal Schomberg was in command.  The pretext assigned was the necessity of protecting the eastern frontier of the Republic against an attack from Cologne, where Cardinal Fuerstenberg, the nominee and ally of Louis XIV, had been elected to the archiepiscopal throne.

Meanwhile diplomacy was active.  D’Avaux was far too clear-sighted not to have discerned the real object of the naval and military preparations, and he warned both Louis XIV and James II.  James, however, was obdurate and took no heed, while Louis played his enemy’s game by declaring war on the Emperor and the Pope, and by invading the Palatinate instead of the Republic.  For William had been doing his utmost to win over to his side, by the agency of Waldeck and Bentinck, the Protestant Princes of Germany, with the result that Brandenburg, Hanover, Saxony, Brunswick and Hesse had undertaken to give him active support against a French attack; while the constant threat against her possessions in the Belgic Netherlands compelled Spain to join the anti-French league which the stadholder had so long been striving to bring into existence.  To these were now added the Emperor and the Pope, who, being actually at war with France, were ready to look favourably upon an expedition which would weaken the common enemy.  The Grand Alliance of William’s dreams had thus (should his expedition to England prove successful) come within the range of practical politics; and with his base secured Orange now determined to delay no longer, but to stake everything upon the issue of the English venture.