Let. ?. and State of Europe . i?5

^ which could not be carried on fuccefsfully, with-out leaving the ten provinces entirely at theulr ’ mercy of France and giving her pretence aud1 * opportunity of ravaging the empire, and extendingher conquefts on the Rhine . The medal of VaNW: Beuninghen, and other pretences that France 0;:: took for attacking the ftates of the Low Countries

Were ridiculous. They impofed on no one: andlec [' the true objedt of Lewis the fourteenth was2(kfc manifeft to all. But what ccftild a king of Englandmean? Charles the fecond bad reafons of refent-ment againft the Dutch , and juft ones too noek:: doubt. Among the reft, it was not eafy for himhod to forget the affront he had fuffered , and the lofshe had fuftained , when, depending on the peacein: that was ready to be figned, and that was figned

my: at Breda in July, he negledted to fit out his fleet;:r<w and when that of Holland, commanded bysick: Ruyter, with Cornelius De Wit on boardlylcr. as deputy or commiffioner of the ftates, burnt his, ofi fhips at Chatham in June. The famous perpetualbyci; edidt, as it was called but did not prove in theen, S event, againft the eledtion of a ftadtholder, whichiecH, John De Wit promoted, carried, and obligedthe prince of Orange to fwear to maintain afc very few days after the conclufion of the peace atire: Breda, might be another motive in the breaft of

a: : king Charles the fecond: as it was certainly a

j t, pretence of revenge on the Dutch , or at leaft onthe De Wits and the Louveftein fadtion, that,[ tl: ruled almoft defpotically in that commonwealth^,.d But it is plain that neither thefe reafons; not