Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/110

102 things now stood, was very unjust; for, while the towns in Flanders were in the hands of France or Spain, the Dutch and we traded to them upon equal foot; but now, since by the Barrier-treaty those towns were to be possessed by the States, that republick might lay what duties they pleased upon British goods, after passing by Ostend, and make their own custom-free, which would utterly ruin our whole trade with Flanders."

Upon this, the lords told mons. Buys very frankly, "That, if the States expected the queen should support their barrier, as their demands from France and the house of Austria upon that head, they ought to agree that the subjects of Britain should trade as freely to all the countries and places, which, by virtue of any former or future treaty, were to become the barrier of the States, as they did in the time of the late king Charles the Second of Spain, or as the subjects of the States General themselves shall do: and it is hoped, their Highmightinesses would never scruple to rectify a mistake so injurious to that nation, without whose blood and treasure they would have had no barrier at all." Mons. Buys had nothing to answer against these objections; but said, "He had already wrote to his masters for farther instructions."

Greater difficulties occurred about settling what should be the barrier to the States after a peace: the envoy insisting to have all the towns that were named in the treaty of barrier and succession; and the queen’s ministers excepting those towns, which, if