Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/370

362 is now carried on. And as they increase their trade, it is obvious they will enlarge their strength at sea, and that ours must lessen in proportion.

All the ports in Flanders are to be subject to the like duties that the Dutch shall lay upon the Schelde, which is to be closed on the side of the States: thus all other nations are in effect shut out from trading with Flanders. Yet in the very same article it is said, that the States shall be favoured in all the Spanish dominions as much as Great-Britain, or as the people most favoured. We have conquered Flanders for them, and are in a worse condition, as to our trade there, than before the war began. We have been the great support of the king of Spain, to whom the Dutch have hardly contributed any thing at all; and yet they are to be equally favoured with us in all his dominions. Of all this, the queen is under the unreasonable obligation of being guarantee, and that they shall possess their barrier, and their four hundred thousand crowns a year, even before a peace.

It is to be observed, that this treaty was only signed by one of our plenipotentiaries ; and I have been told that the other was heard to say, he would rather lose his right hand than set it to such a treaty. Had he spoke those words in due season, and loud enough to be heard on this side the water, considering the credit he had then at court, he might have saved much of his country's honour, and got as much to himself; therefore, if the report be true, I am inclined to think he only said it. I have been likewise told, that some very necessary stances