INEFFECTUAL NEGOTIATION with FRANCE.

During these transactions, Mr. Stanhope, envoy extraordinary to the states-general, was empowered to treat with the ministers of France and Spain, according to the addresses of both houses of parliament. He represented, that though his most christian majesty had thought fit to deviate from the partition-treaty, it was not reasonable that the king of England should lose the effect of that convention; he therefore expected some security for the peace of Europe; and for that purpose insisted upon certain articles, importing, That the French king should immediately withdraw his troops from the Spanish Netherlands; that for the security of England, the cities of Ostend and Nieuport should be delivered into the hands of his Britannic majesty; that no kingdom, provinces, cities, lands, or places, belonging to the crown of Spain, should ever be yielded or transferred to the crown of France, on any pretence whatever; that the subjects of his Britannic majesty should retain all the privileges, rights, and immunities, with regard to their navigation and commerce in the dominions of Spain, which they enjoyed at the death of his late catholic majesty; and also all such immunities, rights, and franchises, as the subjects of France, or any other power, either possess for the present, or may enjoy for the future; that all treaties of peace and conventions between England and Spain should be renewed; and that a treaty formed on these demands should be guaranteed by such powers as one or other of the contractors should solicit and prevail upon to accede. Such likewise were the proposals made by the states-general, with this difference, that they demanded as cautionary towns, all the strongest places in the Netherlands. Count D’A vaux, the French minister, was so surprised at these exorbitant demands, that he could not help saying, They could not have been higher, if his master had lost four successive battles. He assured them that his most christian majesty would withdraw his troops from the Spanish Netherlands as soon as the king of Spain should have forces of his own sufficient to guard the country; with respect to the other articles, he could give no other answer, but that he would immediately transmit them to Versailles. Louis was filled with indignation at the insolent strain of those proposals, which he considered as a sure mark of William’s hostile intentions. He refused to give any other security for the peace of Europe, than a renewal of the treaty of Ryswick; and he is said to have tampered, by means of his agents and emissaries, with the members of the English parliament, that they might oppose all steps tending to a new war on the continent.

WILLIAM, 1688—1701.