The famous perpetual edict,as it was called,but did not prove in the event,against the election of a stadtholder,which John de Wit promoted,carried,and obliged the Prince of Orange to swear to maintain a very few days after the conclusion of the peace at Breda,might be another motive in the breast of king Charles the Second:as it was certainly a pretence of revenue on the Dutch,or at least on the De Wits and the Louvestein faction,that ruled almost despotically in that commonwealth.But it is plain that nether these reasons,nor others of a more ancient date,determined him to this alliance with France;since he contracted the triple alliance within four or five months after the two events,I have mentioned,happened.What then did he mean?Did he mean to acquire one of the seven provinces,and divide them,as the Dutch had twice treated for the division of the ten,with France?
I believe not;but this I believe,that his inclinations were favorable to the popish interest in general,and that he meant to make himself more absolute at home;that he thought it necessary to this end to humble the Dutch,to reduce their power,and,perhaps,to change the form of their government;to deprive his subjects of the correspondence with a neighboring protestant and free state,and of all hope of succor and support from thence in their opposition to him;in a word to abet the designs of France on the continent,that France might abet his designs on his own kingdom.This,I say,I believe;and this I should venture to affirm,if I had in my hands to produce,and was at liberty to quote,the private relations I have read formerly,drawn up by those who were no enemies to such designs,and on the authority of those who were parties to them.But whatever king Charles the Second meant,certain it is,that his conduct established the superiority of France in Europe.
But this charge,however,must not be confined to him alone.Those who were nearer the danger,those who were exposed to the immediate attacks of France,and even those who were her rivals for the same succession,having either assisted her,or engaged to remain neuters,a strange fatality prevailed,and produced such a conjuncture as can hardly be parallelled in history.
Your lordship will observe with astonishment,even in the beginning of the year one thousand six hundred and seventy-two,all the neighbors of France,acting as if they had nothing to fear from her,and some as if they had much to hope,by helping her to oppress the Dutch and sharing with her the spoils of that commonwealth."Delenda est Carthago"was the cry in England,and seemed too a maxim on the continent.
In the course of the same year,you will observe that all these powers took the alarm,and began to unite in opposition to France.Even England thought it time to interpose in favor of the Dutch.The consequences of this alarm,of this sudden turn in the policy of Europe,and of that which happened,by the massacre of the De Wits,and the elevation of the prince of Orange,in the government of the seven provinces,saved these provinces,and stopped the rapid progress of the arms of France.Louis the Fourteenth indeed surprised the seven provinces in this war,as he had surprised the ten in that of one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven,and ravaged defenceless countries with armies sufficient to conquer them,if they had been prepared to resist.In the war of one thousand six hundred and seventy-two,he had little less than one hundred and fifty thousand men on foot,besides the bodies of English,Swiss,Italians,and Swedes,that amounted to thirty or forty thousand more.
With this mighty force he took forty places in forty days,imposed extravagant conditions of peace,played the monarch a little while at Utrecht;and as soon as the Dutch recovered from their consternation,and,animated by the example of the Prince of Orange and the hopes of succor,refused these conditions,he went back to Versailles,and left his generals to carry on his enterprise:
