Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/380

372 is likely to continue it longest. Can there an example be given in the whole course of this war, where we have treated the pettiest prince, with whom we had to deal, in so contemptuous a manner? Did we ever once consider what we could afford, or what we were obliged to, when our assistance was desired, even while we lay under immediate apprehensions of being invaded?

When Portugal came as a confederate into the grand alliance, it was stipulated, that the empire, England, and Holland, should each maintain four thousand men of their own troops in that kingdom, and pay between them a million of patacoons to the king of Portugal, for the support of twenty-eight thousand Portuguese; which number of forty thousand was to be the confederate army against Spain on the Portugal side. This treaty was ratified by all the three powers. But in a short time after, the emperor declared himself unable to comply with this part of the agreement, and so left the two thirds upon us; who very generously undertook that burden, and at the same time two thirds of the subsidies for maintenance of the Portuguese troops. But neither is this the worst part of the story; for although the Dutch did indeed send their own particular quota of four thousand men to Portugal (which however they would not agree to but upon condition that the other two thirds should be supplied by us) yet they never took care to recruit them; for in the year 1706, the Portuguese, British, and Dutch forces, having marched with the earl of Galway into Castile, and by