Let. 7. and State of Europe . 187

lie bad already exercifed many. Though the French writers endeavour to flide over them, to palliatethem, and to impute them particularly to theEnglilh that were in their fervice, for even this,one of their writers has the front to advance:yet thefe cruelties unheard of among civilizednations, rauft be granted to have been orderedby the counfels, and executed by the arms ofFrance , in the Palatinate , and in other parts.

If Lewis the fourteenth could have contentedhimfelf with the acquifitions that were confirmedto him by the treaties of one thoyfand fix hundredand feventy-eight, and one thoufand fix hundredand feventy-nine, and with the authority andreputation which he then gained ; it is plain thathe would have pr-.vented the alliances that wereafterwards formed againft him, and that he mighthave regained his credit amongft the princes ofthe empire, where he had one family-alliance bythe marriage of his brother to the daughter of theelector Palatine, and another by that of his fonto the fitter of the elector of Bavaria ; whereSweden was clofely attached to him, and wherethe fame principles of private intereft would havefoon attached others as clofely. He might haveremained not only the principal, but the directingpower of Europe , and have held this rank withall the glory imaginable, till the death of theking of Spain , or fome other objed of greatambition, had determined him to act anotherpart. But, inflead of this, he continued to vexand provoke all thofe who were, unhappily for