Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/429

Rh for them whatever shall be thought necessary besides; and where their necessity will terminate, is not very easy to foresee.

Could any of her majesty's subjects conceive, that in the towns we have taken for the Dutch, and given into their possession as a barrier, either the States should demand, or our ministers allow, that the subjects of Britain should, in respect to their trade, be used worse than they were under the late king of Spain? yet this is the fact, as monstrous as it appears: all goods going to, or coming from Newport or Ostend, are to pay the same duties, as those that pass by the Schelde under the Dutch forts: and this, in effect, is to shut out all other nations from trading to Flanders. The English merchants at Bruges complain, that after they have paid the king of Spain's duty for goods imported at Ostend, the same goods are made liable to farther duties, when they are carried thence into the towns of the Dutch new conquests; and desire only the same privileges of trade they had before the death of the late king of Spain, Charles II. And in consequence of this treaty, the Dutch have already taken off eight per cent from all goods they send to the Spanish Flanders, but left it still upon us.

But what is very surprising, in the very same article, where our good friends and allies are wholly shutting us out from trading in those towns we have conquered for them with so much blood and treasure, the queen is obliged to procure, that the States shall be used as favourably in their trade over all the king of Spain's dominions, as her own subjects, or as the people most favoured. This I humbly conceive to be perfect boys-play; "Cross I Rh