Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/368

360 of the Dutch, to preserve a right so well established, be an equivalent to those many unreasonable exorbitant articles in the rest of the treaty, let the world judge. What an impression of our settlement must it give abroad, to see our ministers offering such conditions to the Dutch, to prevail on them to be guarantees of our acts of parliament! neither perhaps is it right, in point of policy or good sense, that a foreign power should be called in to confirm our succession by way of guarantee, but only to acknowledge it; otherwise we put it out of the power of our own legislature to change our succession, without the consent of that prince or state who is guarantee, how much soever the necessities of the kingdom may require it.

As to the other articles, it is a natural consequence that must attend any treaty of peace we can make with France; being only the acknowledgment of her majesty as queen of her own dominions, and the right of succession by our own laws, which no foreign power has any pretence to dispute.

However, in order to deserve these mighty advantages from the States, the rest of the treaty is wholly taken up in directing what we are to do for them.

By the grand alliance, which was the foundation of the present war, the Spanish Low-countries were to