Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/244

236 with us and the States. His concessions were few and constrained, serving only to render him more tenacious of what he refused. In several of the towns which the States were to keep, he insisted, "That France should retain the chatellanies, or extent of country depending on them, particularly that of Tournay;" a demand the more unjustifiable, because he knew his master had not only proceeded directly contrary, but had erected a court in his kingdom, where his own judges extended the territories about those towns he had taken as far as he pleased to direct them. Mons. Mesnager showed equal obstinacy in what his master expected for the elector of Bavaria, and in refusing the tariff of 1664: so that the queen's plenipotentiaries represented these difficulties as what might be of dangerous consequence, both to the peace in general, and to the States in particular, if they were not speedily prevented.

Upon these considerations, her majesty thought it her shortest and safest course to apply directly to France, where she had then so able a minister as the duke of Shrewsbury.

The marquis de Torcy, secretary to the most Christian king, was the minister with whom the duke was to treat, as having been the first who moved his master to apply to the queen for a peace, in opposition to a violent faction in that kingdom, who were as eagerly bent to continue the war, as any other could be, either here or in Holland.

It would be very unlike an historian, to refuse this great minister the praise he so justly deserves, of having treated, through the whole course of so great a negotiation, with the utmost candour and integrity;