Page:Karl Marx - Secret Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century (1899).djvu/75

 Rh all the above-mentioned Treaties, and consequently the true author of the disturbances our trade meets with in the Baltic? Why in God's name don't we, according to this article, assist Sweden against him, and why do we, on the contrary, declare openly against the injured King of Sweden, send hectoring and threatening memorials to him, upon the least advantage he has over his enemies, as we did last summer upon his entering Norway, and even order our fleets to act openly against him in conjunction with the Danes?

"Article XIX. There shall be 'stricter confederacy and union between the above-mentioned Kings of Great Britain and Sweden, for the future, for the defence and preservation of the Protestant, Evangelic, and reformed religion.'

"Query I. How do we, according to this article, join with Sweden to assert, protect, and preserve the Protestant religion? Don't we suffer that nation, which has always been a bulwark to the said religion, most unmercifully to be torn to pieces? … Don't we ourselves give a helping hand towards its destruction? And why all this? Because our merchants have lost their ships to the value of sixty odd thousand pounds. For this loss, and nothing else, was the pretended reason why, in the year 1715, we sent our fleet in the Baltic, at the expense of £200,000; and as to what our merchants have suffered since, suppose we attribute it to our threatening memorials as well as open hostilities against the King of Sweden, must we not even then own that that Prince's resentment has been very moderate?

"Query II. How can other Princes, and especially our fellow Protestants, think us sincere in what we have made them believe as to our zeal in spending millions of lives and money for to secure the Protestant interest only in one single branch of it, I mean the Protestant succession here, when they see that that succession has hardly taken place, before we, only for sixty odd thousand pounds, (for let us always remember that this paltry sum was the first pretence for our quarrelling with Sweden) go about to undermine the very foundation of that interest in general, by helping, as we do, entirely to sacrifice Sweden, the old and sincere