“We take this occasion further to assure your Majesty we are very sensible of the great and imminent danger to which the States General are at present exposed; and we do perfectly agree with them in believing that their safety and ours are so inseparably united that whatsoever is ruin to the one must be fatal to the other.

“And we humbly desire your Majesty will be pleased not only to make good all the articles of any former treaty to the States General, but that you will enter into a strict league offensive and defensive with them for our common preservation; and that you will invite into it all princes and states who are concerned in the present visible danger arising from the union of France and Spain.

“And we further desire your Majesty, that you will be pleased to enter into such alliances with the Emperor as your Majesty shall think fit, pursuant to the ends of the treaty of 1689:  towards all which we assure your Majesty of our hearty and sincere assistance; not doubting, but, whenever your Majesty shall be obliged to engage for the defence of your allies, and for securing the liberty and quiet of Europe, Almighty God will protect your sacred person in so righteous a cause, and that the unanimity, wealth, and courage of your subjects will carry your Majesty with honor and success through all the difficulties of a JUST WAR.”

The House of Commons was more reserved.  The late popular disposition was still in a great degree prevalent in the representative, after it had been made to change in the constituent body.  The principle of the Grand Alliance was not directly recognized in the resolution of the Commons, nor the war announced, though they were well aware the alliance was formed for the war.  However, compelled by the returning sense of the people, they went so far as to fix the three great immovable pillars of the safety and greatness of England, as they were then, as they are now, and as they must ever be to the end of time.  They asserted in general terms the necessity of supporting Holland, of keeping united with our allies, and maintaining the liberty of Europe; though they restricted their vote to the succors stipulated by actual treaty.  But now they were fairly embarked, they were obliged to go with the course of the vessel; and the whole nation, split before into an hundred adverse factions, with a king at its head evidently declining to his tomb, the whole nation, lords, commons, and people, proceeded as one body informed by one soul.  Under the British union, the union of Europe was consolidated; and it long held together with a degree of cohesion, firmness, and fidelity not known before or since in any political combination of that extent.

Just as the last hand was given to this immense and complicated machine, the master workman died.  But the work was formed on true mechanical principles, and it was as truly wrought.  It went by the impulse it had received from the first mover.  The man was dead; but the Grand Alliance survived, in which King William lived and reigned.  That heartless and dispirited people, whom Lord Somers had represented about two years before as dead in energy and operation, continued that war, to which it was supposed they were unequal in mind and in means, for near thirteen years.