PRIDE AND OBSTINACY OF THE DUTCH.

The French ministers were subjected to every species of mortification. They were in a manner confined to a small fortified town, and all their conduct narrowly watched. Their accommodation was mean: their letters were opened; and they were daily insulted by injurious libels. The Dutch deputies would hear of no relaxation, and no expedient for removing the difficulties that retarded the negotiation. In vain the plenipotentiaries declared, that the French king could not with decency, or the least regard to his honour, wage war against his own grandson: the deputies insisted upon his effecting the cession of Spain and the Indies to the house of Austria; and submitting to every other article specified in the preliminaries. Nay, they even reserved to them selves a power of making ulterior demands after the preliminaries should be adjusted. Louis proposed that some small provision should be made for the duke of Anjou, which might induce him to relinquish Spain the more easily. He mentioned the kingdom of Arragon; and this hint being disagreeable to the allies, he demanded Naples and Sicily. When they urged that Naples was already in possession of the house of Austria, he restricted the provision to Sicily and Sardinia. He offered to deliver up four cautionary towns in Flanders, as a security for Philip’s evacuating Spain; and even promised to supply the confederates with a monthly sum of money, to defray the expense of expelling that prince from his dominions, should he refuse to resign them with a good grace. The substance of all the conferences was communicated to lord Townshend, and count Kinzendorf, the Imperial plenipotentiary; but the conduct of the deputies was regulated by the pensionary Heinsius, who was firmly attached to prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough, more averse than ever to a pacification. The negotiation lasted from the nineteenth day of March to the twenty-fifth of July, during which term the conferences were several times interrupted, and a great many despatches and new proposals arrived from Versailles. At length the plenipotentiaries returned to France, after having sent a letter to the pensionary, in which they declared that the proposals made by the deputies were unjust and impracticable; and complained of the unworthy treatment to which they had been exposed. Louis resolved to hazard another campaign, not without hope that there might be some lucky incident in the events of war, and that the approaching revolution in the English ministry, of which he was well apprized, would be productive of a more reasonable pacification. The states-general resolved, that the enemy had departed from the foundation on which the negotiation had begun, and studied pretences to evade the execution of the capital points, the restitution of Spain and the Indies: and, in short, that France had no other view than to sow and create jealousy and disunion among the allies. Lord Townshend, in a memorial, assured them that the queen entirely approved their resolution, and all the steps they had taken in the course of the negotiation; and that she was firmly resolved to prosecute the war with all possible vigour, until the enemy should accept such terms of peace as might secure the tranquillity of the christian world.