FRENCH KING’S PROPOSALS OF TREATING REJECTED BY THE STATES-GENERAL.

Though the events of the summer had been less unfavourable to France than Louis had reason to expect, he saw that peace was as necessary as ever to his kingdom; but he thought he might now treat with some freedom and dignity. His minister, Torcy, maintained a correspondence with Mr. Petkum, resident of the duke of Holstein at the Hague: he proposed to this minister, that the negotiation should be renewed; and demanded passes, by virtue of which the French plenipotentiaries might repair in safety to Holland. In the meantime, the French king withdrew his troops from Spain, on pretence of demonstrating his readiness to oblige the allies in that particular; though this measure was the effect of necessity, which obliged him to recall those troops for the defence of his own dominions. The states-general refused to grant passes to the French ministers; but they allowed Petkum to make a journey to Versailles. In the interim king Philip published a manifesto, protesting against all that should be transacted at the Hague to his prejudice. Far from yielding Spain and the Indies to his competitor, he declared his intention of driving Charles from those places that were now in his possession. He named the duke of Alba and count Bergheyck for his plenipotentiaries, and ordered them to notify their credentials to the maritime powers; but no regard was paid to their intimation. Philip tampered likewise with the duke of Marlborough; and the marquis de Torcy renewed his attempts upon that general; but all his application and address proved ineffectual. Petkum brought back from Versailles a kind of memorial, importing, that those motives which influenced the French before the campaign was opened, no longer subsisted; that the winter season naturally produced a cessation of arms, during which he would treat of a general and reasonable peace, without restricting himself to the form of the preliminaries which the allies had pretended to impose; that, nevertheless, he would still treat on the foundation of those conditions to which he had consented, and send plenipotentiaries to begin the conference with those of the allies on the first day of January. The states-general inveighed against this memorial, as a proof of the French king’s insincerity; though he certainly had a right to retract those offers they had formerly rejected. They came to a resolution, that it was absolutely necessary to prosecute the war with rigour; and they wrote pressing letters on the subject to all their allies.

ANNE, 1701—1714