diet or parliament, and others of lefs importance. All was in vain. The war continued with them and with the Turks, and France was left at liberty to push her enterprises almost without opposition against Germany and the Low Coun tries. The diftrefs in both was fo great, that the States General faw no other expedient for ftopping the progrefs of the French arms, than a ceffation of hoftilities, or a truce of twenty years; which they negociated, and which was accepted by the emperor and the king of Spain, on the terms that Lewis XIV. thought fit to offer. By these terms he was to remain in full and quiet poffeffion of all he had acquired fince the years one thousand fix hundred and feventyeight, and one thousand fix hundred and feventy-nine; among which acquifitions that of Luxemburg and that of Strasburg were comprehended. The conditions of this truce were fo advantageous to France, that all their intrigues were employed to obtain a definitive treaty of peace upon the fame conditions. But this was neither the interest nor the intention of the other contracting powers. The imperial arms had been very fuccefsful against the Turks. This fuccefs, as well as the troubles that followed upon it in the Ottoman armies and at the Porte, gave a reasonable expectation of concluding a peace on that fide; and, this peace concluded, the emperor, and the empire, and the king of Spain, would have been in a much better pofture to treat with France. With thefe views, that were wife and juft, the league of Aufburg

.was

was made between the emperor, the kings of Spain and Sweden as princes of the empire, and the other circles and princes. This league was purely defenfive. An exprefs article declared it to be fo and as it had no other regard, it was not only conformable to the laws and conftitutions of the empire, and to the practice of all nations, but even to the terms of the act of truce fo lately concluded. This pretence therefore for breaking the truce, feizing the electorate of Cologn, invading the Palatinate, besieging Philipfburg, and carrying unexpected and undeclared war into the empire, could not be fupported: nor is it poffible to read the reafons published by France at this time, and drawn from her fears of the imperial power, without laughter. As little pretence was there to complain, that the emperor refused to convert at once the truce into a definitive treaty; fince, if he had done fo, he would have confirmed in a lump, and without any difcuffion, all the arbitrary decrees of those chambers, or courts, that France had erected to cover her ufurpations; and would have given up almost a fixth part of the provinces of the empire, that France one way or other had poffeffed herself of. The pretenfions of the Dutchefs of Orleans on the fucceffion of her father and her brother, which were disputed by the then elector Palatine, and were to be determined by the laws and customs of the empire, afforded as little pretence for beginning this war as any of the former allegations. The exclufion of the cardinal of Furstenberg, who

had

had been elected to the archbishopric of Cologn, was capable of being aggravated: but even in this cafe his moft Chriftian Majefty oppofed his judgment and his authority against the judgment and authority of that holy father, whofe eldest son he was proud to be called. In fhort, the true reason why Lewis XIV. began that cruel war with the empire, two years after he had concluded a ceffation of hoftilities for twenty, was this: he refolved to keep what he had got; and therefore he refolved to encourage the Turks to continue the war. He did this

effectually, by invading Germany at the very inftant when the fultan was fuing for peace. Notwithstanding this, the Turks were in treaty again the following year: and good policy fhould have obliged the emperor, fince he could not hope to carry on this war and that against France at the fame time with vigour and effect, to conclude a peace with the least dangerous enemy of the two. The decifion of this difpute with France could not be deferred; his defigns against the Hungarians were in part accomplished, for his fon was declared king, and the fettlement of that crown in his family was made; and the rest of these, as well as thofe that he formed against the Turks, might be deferred. But the councils of Vienna judged differently, and infifted even at this critical moment on the most exorbitant terms; on fome of fuch a nature, that the Turks fhewed more humanity and a better fenfe of religion in refufing, than they in afking them. Thus the war went

on

on in Hungary, and proved a conftant diverfion in favour of France, during the whole courfe of of that which Lewis XIV. began at this time: for the treaty of Carlowitz was pofterior to that of Ryfwic. The empire, Spain, England, and Holland, engaged in the war with France; and on them the emperor left the burden of it. In the fhort war of one thoufand fix hundred and fixty-feven, he was not fo much as a party; and inftead of affifting the king of Spain, which, it must be owned, he was in no good condition of doing, he bargained for dividing that prince's fucceffion, as I have observed above. In the war of one thousand fix hundred and seventytwo, he made fome feeble efforts. In this of one thousand fix hundred and eighty-eight, he did ftill lefs and in the war which broke out at the beginning of the present century, he did no, thing, at least after the campaign in Italy, and after the engagements that England and Holland took by the grand alliance. In a word, from the time that an oppofition to France became a common cause in Europe, the house of Auftria has been a clog upon it in many inftances, and of confiderable affiftance to it

in none. The acceffion of England to this cause, which was brought about by the revolution of one thousand fix hundred and eighty-eight, might have made amends, and more than amends, one would think, for this defect, and have thrown fuperiority of power and of fuccefs on the fide of the confederates, with whom the took part against France. This, I fay, might

be

be imagined, without over-rating the power of England, or undervaluing that of France; and it was imagined at that time. How it proved otherwise in the event; how France came triumphant out of the war that ended by the treaty of Ryfwic, and, though she gave up a great deal, yet preferved the greatest and the best part of her conquefts and acquifitions made fince the treaties of Weftphalia and the Pyrenées; how fhe acquired, by the gift of Spain, that whole monarchy for one of her princes, though she had no reason to expect the least part of it without a war at one time, nor the great lot of it even by a war at any time; in fhort, how the wound up advantageously the ambitious system she had been fifty years in weaving; how the concluded a war, in which she was defeated on every fide, and wholly exhausted, with little diminution of the provinces and barriers acquired to France, and with the quiet poffeffion of Spain and the Indies to a prince of the house of Bourbon: all this, my Lord, will be the subject of your refearches, when you come down to the latter part of the last period of modern history.

The fame fubject continued from the year one thousand fix hundred and eighty-eight.

You

OUR Lordship will find, that the objects proposed by the alliance of one thousand