Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/246

238 Condé, and the other of the four species of goods which the French had excepted out of the tariff of 1664, she would not sign without them: That she approved of the Dutch insisting to have the chatellanies restored wdth the towns; and was resolved to stand or fall with them, until they were satisfied in this point."

Her majesty had some apprehensions that the French created these difficulties, on purpose to spin out the treaty until the campaign should begin. They thought it absolutely necessary that our parliament should meet in a few weeks; which could not well be ventured, until the queen were able to tell both houses, that her own peace was signed: That this would not only facilitate what remained in difference between Britain and France, but leave the Dutch entirely at the mercy of the latter.

The queen, weary of these refined mistakes in the French politicks, and fully resolved to be trifled with no longer, sent her determinate orders to the duke of Shrewsbury, to let France know, "That her majesty had hitherto prorogued her parliament, in hopes of accommodating the difficulties in her own treaties of peace and commerce with that crown, as well as settling the interests of her several allies; or at least, that the differences in the former being removed, the most Christian king would have made such offers for the latter, as might justify her majesty in signing her own peace, whether the confederates intended to sign theirs or not. But, several points being yet unfinished between both crowns, and others between France and the rest of the allies, especially the States, to which the plenipotentiaries of that " court