Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/565

 1920 DUTCH MISSIONS TO ENGLAND IN 1689 557 to act with the utmost vigour.^ They agreed to confirm all the existing treaties and to revive the treaty of March 1678 on the renewal of peace, but they stuck to their refusal to fix the con- tingents. A treaty- was drafted in accordance with their views, containing in effect nothing beyond the renewals, the agreement for a common peace, and a provision that the late convention for the employment of forces during the year was to be supple- mented as soon as possible by articles on the numbers and uses of the troops and vessels. Delay still followed delay, Citters and Witsen falling into their accustomed doubts about the wisdom of putting their names to what had been agreed.^ On 24 August/ 3 September, however, the treaty of alliance was signed, third in order of date among the four conventions of the year, that on trade with France having been taken in the course of the alliance negotiations. It is especially in the negotiations for the treaty of alliance and the naval convention that the lack of English evidence is to be deplored. A question which has a certain impor- tance throughout the war, and not least at its beginning, is the question what view the English government took of the resources of the Dutch and the effort they ought to make by land and sea. For the present there is no light on it from the records of these negotiations. Nor can one be sure that some of the delays were not due to other cross-currents of distrust than those which the Dutch representatives detected. On the whole, however, there can be little doubt about the main significance of the four treaties. The Dutch were already irrevocably committed to the war before they sent their missions to London. They were not able to extort a price from the English for their support, and, consequently, they got nothing but an ally for the war who refused to take part in it as a war of limited liability and yet refused to put an end to his commercial rivalry or his old claims of precedence. Since this ally was already the stronger party of the two, and since his strength was to be increased and his reserves of wealth developed in the succeeding years of war and peace, whilst those of the Dutch made little progress or none, it is no wonder that these treaties began a period in which the close alliance of the sea-powers contributed, above all else, to the greatness of England. G. N. Clark. ■' Witsen to Heinsius, 1/11 August (partly printed in van der Heim, i. 20), 6/16 August.
 * Ambassadors' dispatch, 2/12 July.
 * Text in Dumont, vii. ii. 236, without the full date 24 Augu8t/3 September.