Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/379

Rh to him. In order to enable him, the only thing he asked was, that he should be reinforced by the imperial court with eight thousand men, before the end of the campaign. Mr. Whitworth was sent to Vienna, to make this proposal; and it is credibly reported that he was empowered, rather than fail, to offer forty thousand pounds for the march of those eight thousand men, if he found it was want of ability, and not inclination, that hindered the sending of them. But he was so far from succeeding, that it was said, the ministers of that court did not so much as give him an opportunity to tempt them with any particular sums; but cut off all his hopes at once, by alleging the impossibility of complying with the queen's demands, upon any consideration whatsoever. They could not plead their old excuse of the war in Hungary, which was then brought to an end. They had nothing to offer but some general speculative reasons, which it would expose them to repeat; and so, after much delay, and many trifling pretences, they utterly refused so small and seasonable an assistance; to the ruin of a project that would have more terrified France, and caused a greater diversion of their forces, than a much more numerous army in any other part. Thus, for want of eight thousand men, for whose winter campaign the queen was willing to give forty thousand pounds; and for want of executing the design I lately mentioned, of hindering the enemy from erecting magazines, toward which her majesty was ready not only to bear her own proportion, but a share of that which the States were obliged to; our hopes of taking winter quarters in the north and south parts of France are eluded, and the war left in that method, which Rh