MEMORIAL PRESENTED TO THE STATES BY MAJOR-GENERAL YORKE

In the month of September, major-general Yorke, the British minister at the Hague, presented a memorial to the states-general, remonstrating, that the merchants of Holland carried on a contraband trade in favour of France, by transporting cannon and warlike stores from the Baltic to Holland, in Dutch bottoms, under the borrowed names of private persons; and then conveying them by the inland rivers and canals, or through the Dutch fortresses, to Dunkirk and other places of France. He desired that the king his master might be made easy on that head, by their putting an immediate stop to such practices, so repugnant to the connexions subsisting by treaty between Great Britain and the United Provinces, as well as to every idea of neutrality. He observed, that the attention which his majesty had lately given to their representations against the excesses of the English privateers, by procuring an act of parliament, which laid them under proper restrictions, gave him a good title to the same regard on the part of their high mightinesses. He reminded them that their trading towns felt the good effects of these restrictions; and that the freedom of navigation which their subjects enjoyed amidst the troubles and distractions of Europe, had considerably augmented their commerce. He observed, that some return ought to be made to such solid proofs of the king’s friendship and moderation; at least, the merchants, who were so ready to complain of England, ought not to be countenanced in excesses which would have justified the most rigorous examination of their conduct. He recalled to their memories that, during the course of the present war, the king had several times appealed to their high mightinesses, and to their ministers, on the liberty they had given to carry stores through the fortresses of the republic for the use of France, to invade the British dominions; and though his majesty had passed over in silence many of these instances of complaisance to his enemy, he was no less sensible of the injury; but he chose rather to be a sufferer himself, than to increase the embarrassment of his neighbours or extend the flames of war. He took notice that even the court of Vienna had, upon more than one occasion, employed its interest with their high mightinesses, and lent its name to obtain passes for warlike stores and provisions for the French troops, under colour of the barrier-treaty, which it no longer observed; nay, after having put France in possession of Ostend and Nieuport, in manifest violation of that treaty, and without any regard to the rights which they and the king his master had acquired in that treaty, at the expense of so much blood and treasure.