Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/457

Rh tempted to make some enterpriessenterprises [sic] upon the territories of the queen of Great Britain and their high mightinesses, and interrupt the publick repose and tranquillity; for the preservation of which, and the balance of Europe against the exorbitant power of France, the allies engaged themselves in this long and burdensome war; therefore the said queen of Great Britain and their high mightinesses agree and oblige themselves not to enter into any negotiation or treaty of peace with France, before it shall be yielded and stipulated by France as a preliminary, that all the fortifications of the said town of Dunkirk, and the forts that depend upon it, be entirely demolished and rased, and that the port be entirely ruined and rendered impracticable.

These two articles are likewise omitted in the barrier treaty; whereof the first regards particularly the interests of the house of Austria; and the other about demolishing those of Great Britain. It is something strange, that the late ministry, whose advocates raise such a clamour about the necessity of recovering Spain from the house of Bourbon, should suffer the Dutch to strike out this article, which I think clearly shows the reason why the States never troubled themselves with the thoughts of reducing Spain, or even recovering Milan, Naples, and Sicily, to the emperor, but were wholly fixed upon the conquest of Flanders, because they had determined those provinces as a property for themselves.

As for the article about demolishing Dunkirk, I am not at all surprised to find it struck out; the. III.