Page:The deplorable history of the Catalans, from their first engaging in the war, to the time of their reduction. (1714).djvu/58

 and of a certain Project or Plan of Negotiation, contrary to the Service of their Catholick Majesty, and to the Liberty of the Monarchy of Spain; we think it our Duty and Obligation to your Majesty, as our lawful Father and natural King, to make the following most humble Representation to you. Your Catholick Majesty knows in what glorious Manner your August Predecessors contributed to advance this Monarchy, and to defend it against the Violences of its Enemies, who constantly endeavoured to traverse its Grandeur. In succeeding time, the Fidelity of Spain has constantly been secured under the Dominion of the Princes of your August House, your Majesty's Predecessors, by a strict Correspondence and Union with the Empire for above a Century, which Union would be destroyed, should the Duke of Anjou remain in Possession of the Body of this Monarchy, which would thereby be engaged in Interests opposite to those of the August House of Austria, to whom the Spanish Nation owes its Glory and Renown. Besides, it would be very difficult to defend the Parts separated from the Body of Spain and to obtrain the End proposed by declaring this War, which was to re-establish the Tranquility of Europe, by hindring the Union of the two Monarchies of France and Spain, which the Kings your Predecessors had so much at Heart to prevent, by those Renunciations which France have no manner of Reguard to: So that the Ground of the War subsists still, and a Peace by which the Body of Spain is transferred to the House of France, cannot be looked on otherwise than as an Occasion of a new War; because that would furnish France with an Increase of Means to push on the Progress of her Arms, and to accomplish her Designs, formed so long ago