RESOLUTIONS AGAINST THE BARRIER-TREATY AND THE DUTCH.

The commons now directed the stream of their resentment against the Dutch, who had certainly exerted all their endeavours to overwhelm the new ministry, and retard the negotiations for peace. They maintained an intimate correspondence with the whigs of England. They diffused the most invidious reports against Oxford and secretary St. John. Buys, their envoy at London, acted the part of an incendiary, in suggesting violent measures to the malcontents, and caballing against the government. The ministers, by way of reprisal, influenced the house of commons to pass some acrimonious resolutions against the states-general. They alleged that the states had been deficient in their proportion of troops, both in Spain and in the Netherlands, during the whole course of the war; and that the queen had paid above three millions of crowns in subsidies, above what she was obliged to advance by her engagements. They attacked the barrier-treaty, which had been concluded with the states by lord Townshend after the conferences at Gertruydenburgh. By this agreement, England guaranteed a barrier in the Netherlands to the Dutch; and the states bound themselves to maintain, with their whole force, the queen’s title and the protestant succession. The tories affirmed that England was disgraced by engaging any other state to defend a succession which the nation might see cause to alter; that, by this treaty, the states were authorized to interpose in British councils; that, being possessed of all those strong towns, they might exclude the English from trading to them, and interfere with the manufactures of Great Britain. The house of commons voted, that in the barrier-treaty there were several articles destructive to the trade and interest of Great Britain, and therefore highly dishonourable to her majesty; that the lord viscount Townshend was not authorized to conclude several articles in that treaty; that he and all those who had advised its being ratified were enemies to the queen and kingdom. All their votes were digested into a long representation presented to the queen, in which they averred that England, during the war, had been overcharged nineteen millions; a circumstance that implied mismanagement or fraud in the old ministry. The states, alarmed at these resolutions, wrote a respectful letter to the queen, representing the necessity of a barrier for the mutual security of England and the United Provinces. They afterwards drew up a large memorial in vindication of their proceedings during the war; and it was published in one of the English papers. The commons immediately voted it a false, scandalous, and malicious libel, reflecting upon the resolutions of the house; and the printer and publisher were taken into custody, as guilty of a breach of privilege.