THE QUEEN’S MEASURES OBSTRUCTED.

Such were the sentiments of the queen; and her ministers seem to have acted on the same principles, though perhaps party motives may have helped to influence their conduct. The allies concurred in opposing with all their might any treaty which could not gratify their different views of avarice, interest, and ambition. They practised a thousand little artifices to intimidate the queen, to excite a jealousy of Louis, to blacken the characters of her ministers, to raise and keep up a dangerous ferment among the people, by which her life and government were endangered. She could not fail to resent these efforts, which greatly perplexed her measures, and obstructed her design. Her ministers were sensible of the dangerous predicament in which they stood. The queen’s health was much impaired; and the successor countenanced the opposite faction. In case of their sovereign’s death, they had nothing to expect but prosecution and ruin for obeying her commands; they they saw no hope of safety, except in renouncing their principles, and submitting to their adversaries; or else in taking such measures as would hasten the pacification, that the troubles of the kingdom might be appeased, and the people be satisfied with their conduct, before death should deprive them of their sovereign’s protection. With this view they advised her to set on foot a private negotiation with Louis, to stipulate certain advantages for her own subjects in a concerted plan of peace; to enter into such mutual confidence with that monarch, as would anticipate all clandestine transactions to her prejudice, and in some measure enable her to prescribe terms for her allies. The plan was judiciously formed; but executed with too much precipitation. The stipulated advantages were not such as she had a right to demand and insist upon; and without all doubt better might have been obtained, had not the obstinacy of the allies abroad, and the violent conduct of the whig faction at home, obliged the ministers to relax in some material points, and hasten the conclusion of the treaty.