第84章 LETTER 8(26)

The first dauphin,son of Louis the Fourteenth,died several months before this congress began:the second dauphin,his grandson,and the wife and the eldest son of this prince,died,soon after it began,of the same unknown distemper,and were buried together in the same grave.Such family misfortunes,following a long series of national misfortunes,made the old king,though he bore them with much seeming magnanimity,desirous to get out of the war at any tolerable rate,that he might not run the risk of leaving a child of five years old,the present king,engaged in it.The queen did all that was morally possible,except giving up her honor in the negotiation,and the interests of her subjects in the conditions of peace,to procure this union with the States General.

But all she could do was vain;and the same phrensy that had hindered the Dutch from improving to their and to the common advantage the public misfortunes of France,hindered them from improving to the same purposes the private misfortunes of the house of Bourbon.They continued to flatter themselves that they should force the queen out of her measures,by their intrigues with the party in Britain who opposed these measures,and even raise an insurrection against her.But these intrigues,and those of prince Eugene,were known and disappointed;and Monsieur Buys had the mortification to be reproached with them publicly,when he came to take leave of the lords of the council,by the Earl of Oxford;who entered into many particulars that could not be denied,of the private transactions of this sort,to which Buys had been a party,in compliance with his instructions,and,as I believe,much against his own sense and inclinations.As the season for taking the field advanced,the league proposed to defeat the success of the congress by the events of the campaign.But instead of defeating the success of the congress,the events of the campaign served only to turn this success in favor of France.At the beginning of the year,the queen,and the States,in concert,might have given the law to friend and foe,with great advantage to the former;and with such a detriment to the later,as the causes of the war rendered just,the events of it reasonable,and the objects of it necessary.At the end of the year,the allies were no longer in a state of giving,nor the French of receiving the law;and the Dutch had recourse to the queen's good offices,when they could oppose and durst insult her no longer.Even then,these offices were employed with zeal,and with some effect,for them.

Thus the war ended,much more favorably to France than she expected,or they who put an end to it designed.The queen would have humbled and weakened this power.The allies who opposed her would have crushed it,and have raised another as exorbitant on the ruins of it.Neither one nor the other succeeded,and they who meant to ruin the French power,preserved it,by opposing those who meant to reduce it.

Since I have mentioned the events of the year one thousand seven hundred and twelve,and the decisive turn they gave to the negotiations in favor of France,give me leave to say something more on this subject.You will find that I shall do so with much impartiality.The disastrous events of this campaign in the Low Countries,and the consequences of them have been imputed to the separation of the British troops from the army of the allies.

The clamor against this measure was great at that time,and the prejudices which this clamor raised are great still among some men.But as clamor raised these prejudices,other prejudices gave birth to this clamor:and it is no wonder they should do so among persons bent on continuing the war;since I own very freely,that when the first step that led to this separation came to my knowledge,which was not an hour,by the way,before I wrote by the queen's order to the Duke of Ormond,in the very words in which the order was advised and given,"that he should not engage in any siege,nor hazard a battle,till further order,"I was surprised and hurt.So much,that if I had had an opportunity of speaking in private to the queen,after I had received Monsieur De Torcy's letter to me on the subject,and before she went into the council,I should have spoken to her,I think,in the first heat,against it.The truth is,however,that the step was justifiable at that point of time in every respect,and therefore that the consequences are to be charged to the account of those who drew them on themselves,not to the account of the queen,nor of the minister who advised her.The step was justifiable to the allies surely,since the queen took no more upon her,no not so much,by far,in making it,as many of them had done by suspending,or endangering,or defeating operations in the heat of the war,when they declined to send their troops,or delayed the march of them,or neglected the preparations they were obliged to make,on the most frivolous pretences.