Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/187

Rh. They raised endless difficulties about settling the Barrier-treaty as the queen desired; and in one of the first general conferences, they would not suffer the British secretary to take the minutes, but nominated some Dutch professor for that office; which the queen refused, and resented their behaviour, as a useless cavil, intended only to show their want of respect. The British plenipotentiaries had great reason to suspect that the Dutch were, at this time, privately endeavouring to engage in some separate measures with France, by the intervention of one Moleau, a busy factious agent at Amsterdam, who had been often employed in such intrigues; and that this was the cause which made them so litigious and slow in all their steps, in hopes to break the congress, and find better terms for their trade and barrier from the French, than we ever could think fit to allow them. The Dutch ministers did also apply themselves with industry to cultivate the imperial plenipotentiary's favour, in order to secure all advantages of commerce with Spain and the West Indies, in case those dominions could be procured for the emperor: for this reason, they avoided settling any general plan of peace in concert with the plenipotentiaries of Britain, which her majesty desired; and mons. Buys plainly told their lordships, "That it was a point, which neither he nor his colleagues could consent to, before the States were admitted equal sharers with Britain in the trade of Spain."

The court, having notice of this untractable temper in the Dutch, gave direct orders to the plenipotentiaries of Britain, for pressing those of the States to adjust the gross inequalities of the Rh