Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/440

426 He was, soon after the house rose, visited by Horace Walpole while on a journey at the Hague; but the momentary display of conciliation ceased, and the next session hostilities were renewed as fiercely as ever. Whilst these affairs had been taking place in England, the emperor had been finding himself less and less able to contend against France and Spain. He had in vain exerted himself to engage the Dutch and English in his quarrel. He called upon them as bound by the faith of treaties; he represented the balance of power for which both Holland and England had made such sacrifices, as more in danger than ever; but none of these pleas moving Walpole or the Dutch, he threatened to withdraw his troops from the Netherlands, and make over that country to France. The Netherlands had always been a European difficulty—a temptation to France, and, therefore, a bugbear to England, Holland, and Germany.



So early as the days of Marlborough it had been deliberated whether it were not possible to unite it with Holland into one independent state, and thus form a bulwark against the encroachments of France. But Marlborough saw too clearly the antagonistic elements of Dutch and Belgian natures. He declared that not only the towns, but the country people of the Netherlands hated the Dutch; and so modern times have found it, when the project, afterwards again broached by lord Chesterfield, was tried by the allies, and failed.

The threat of the emperor did not move Walpole; he knew too well that it was but a threat. The emperor, therefore, turned his attention to overthrow, if possible, the unmanageable Walpole ministry. He was aware that the