obsequious, but all indefatigable and insatiable.  One prince came mumping to them annually with a lamentable story about his distresses.  A more sturdy beggar threatened to join the Third Party, and to make a separate peace with France, if his demands were not granted.  Every Sovereign too had his ministers and favourites; and these ministers and favourites were perpetually hinting that France was willing to pay them for detaching their masters from the coalition, and that it would be prudent in England and Holland to outbid France.

Yet the embarrassment caused by the rapacity of the allied courts was scarcely greater than the embarrassment caused by their ambition and their pride.  This prince had set his heart on some childish distinction, a title or a cross, and would do nothing for the common cause till his wishes were accomplished.  That prince chose to fancy that he had been slighted, and would not stir till reparation had been made to him.  The Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg would not furnish a battalion for the defence of Germany unless he was made an Elector.287 The Elector of Brandenburg declared that he was as hostile as he had ever been to France; but he had been ill used by the Spanish government; and he therefore would not suffer his soldiers to be employed in the defence of the Spanish Netherlands.  He was willing to bear his share of the war; but it must be in his own way; he must have the command of a distinct army; and he must be stationed between the Rhine and the Meuse.288 The Elector of Saxony complained that bad winter quarters had been assigned to his troops; he therefore recalled them just when they should have been preparing to take the field, but very coolly offered to send them back if England and Holland would give him four hundred thousand rixdollars.289

It might have been expected that at least the two chiefs of the House of Austria would have put forth, at this conjuncture, all their strength against the rival House of Bourbon.  Unfortunately they could not be induced to exert themselves vigorously even for their own preservation.  They were deeply interested in keeping the French out of Italy.  Yet they could with difficulty be prevailed upon to lend the smallest assistance to the Duke of Savoy.  They seemed to think it the business of England and Holland to defend the passes of the Alps, and to prevent the armies of Lewis from overflowing Lombardy.  To the Emperor indeed the war against France was a secondary object.  His first object was the war against Turkey.  He was dull and bigoted.  His mind misgave him that the war against France was, in some sense, a war against the Catholic religion; and the war against Turkey was a crusade.  His recent campaign on the Danube had been successful.  He might easily have concluded an honourable peace with the Porte, and have turned his arms westward.  But he had conceived the hope that he might extend his hereditary dominions at the expense of the Infidels.  Visions of a triumphant entry into Constantinople and of a Te Deum in Saint Sophia’s had risen in his brain.  He not only employed in the East a force more than sufficient to have defended Piedmont and reconquered Loraine; but he seemed to think that England and Holland were bound to reward him largely for neglecting their interests and pursuing his own.290