SOME

REMARKS

ON THE

BARRIER TREATY, &c.

IMAGINE a reasonable person in China reading the following treaty, and one who was ignorant of our affairs, or our geography; he would conceive their high mightinesses the States-general, to be some vast powerful commonwealth, like that of Rome; and her majesty, to be a petty prince, like one of those to whom that republick would sometimes send a diadem for a present, when they behaved themselves well, otherwise could depose at pleasure, and place whom they thought fit in their stead. Such a man would think, that the States had taken our prince and us into their protection; and in return, honoured us so far as to make use of our troops as some small assistance in their conquests, and the enlargement of their empire, or to prevent the incursions of barbarians, upon some of their outlying provinces. But how must it sound in a European ear, that Great Britain, after maintaining a war for so many years, with so much glory and success, and such prodigious expense; after saving the Empire, Holland, and Portugal, and almost recovering Spain, should toward the close of a war

enter

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enter into a treaty with seven Dutch provinces, to secure to them a dominion larger than their own, which she had conquered for them; to undertake for a great deal more, without stipulating the least advantage for herself; and accept, as an equivalent, the mean condition of those States assisting to preserve her queen on the throne, whom, by God's assistance, she is able to defend against all her majesty's enemies and allies put together?

Such a wild bargain could never have been made for us, if the States had not found it their interest to use very powerful motives with the chief advisers (I say nothing of the person immediately employed); and if a party here at home had not been resolved, for ends and purposes very well known, to continue the war as long as they had any occasion for it.

The counterproject of this treaty, made here at London, was bad enough in all conscience: I have said something of it in the preface; her majesty's ministers were instructed to proceed by it in their negotiation. There was one point in that project, which would have been of consequence to Britain, and one or two more where the advantages of the States were not so very exorbitant, and where some care was taken of the house of Austria. Is it possible, that our good allies and friends could not be brought to any terms with us, unless by striking out every particular that might do us any good, and adding still more to those whereby so much was already granted? For instance, the article about demolishing of Dunkirk surely might have remained; which was of some benefit to the States, as well as of mighty advantage to us; and which the French king has lately yielded in one of his preliminaries, although

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although clogged with the demand of an equivalent, which will owe its difficulty only to this treaty.

is

But let me now consider the treaty itself: among the one and twenty articles of which it consists, only two have any relation to us, importing that the Dutch are to be guarantees of our succession, and queen are not to enter into any treaty until the acknowledged by France. We know very well, that it is, in consequence, the interest of the States, as much as ours, that Britain should be governed by a protestant prince. Besides, what is there more in this guaranty, than in all common leagues offensive and defensive between two powers, where each is obliged to defend the other, against any invader, with all their strength? Such was the grand alliance between the emperor, Britain and Holland; which was, or ought to have been, as good a guaranty of our succession, to all intents and purposes, as this in the barrier treaty; and the mutual engagements in such alliances have been always reckoned sufficient, without any separate benefit to either party.

It is, no doubt, for the interest of Britain, that the States should have a sufficient barrier against France; but their high mightinesses, for some few years past, have put a different meaning upon the word barrier, from what it formerly used to bear, when applied to them. When the late king was prince of Orange, and commanded their armies against France, it was never once imagined, that any of the towns taken should belong to the Dutch; they were all immediately delivered up to their lawful monarch; and Flanders was only a barrier to Holland, as it was in the hands of Spain, rather than France. So in the grand alliance of 1701 the several powers promising VOL. III. E B

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to endeavour to recover Flanders for a barrier, was understood to be the recovering of those provinces to the king of Spain; but in this treaty, the style is wholly changed here are about twenty towns and forts of great importance, with their chattellanies and dependencies (which dependencies are likewise to be enlarged as much as possible) and the whole revenues of them to be under the perpetual military government of the Dutch, by which that republick will be entirely masters of the richest part of all Flanders; and upon any appearance of war, they may put their garrisons into any other place of the Low-countries; and farther, the king of Spain is to give them a revenue of four hundred thousand crowns a year, to enable them to maintain those garrisons.

Why should we wonder that the Dutch are inclined to perpetuate the war, when, by an article in this treaty, the king of Spain is not to possess one single town in the Low-countries, until a peace be made? The duke of Anjou, at the beginning of this war, maintained six and thirty thousand men out of those Spanish provinces he then possessed: to which if we add the many towns since taken, which were not in the late king of Spain's possession at the time of his death, with all their territories and dependencies; it is visible what forces the States may be able to keep, even without any charge to their peculiar dominions.

The towns and chattellanies of this barrier always maintained their garrisons when they were in the hands of France; and, as it is reported, returned a considerable sum of money into the king's coffers; yet the king of Spain is obliged by this treaty (as we

have already observed) to add over and above a revenue of four hundred thousand crowns a year. We know likewise, that a great part of the revenue of the Spanish Netherlands is already pawned to the States; so that, after a peace, nothing will be left to the sovereign, nor will the people be much eased of the taxes they at present labour under.

Thus the States, by virtue of this barrier treaty, will, in effect, be absolute sovereigns of all Flanders, and of the whole revenues in the utmost ex

tent.

And here I cannot without some contempt take notice of a sort of reasoning offered by several people; that the many towns we have taken for the Dutch are of no advantage, because the whole revenue of those towns are spent in maintaining them. For, first, the fact is manifestly false, particularly as to Lisle and some others. Secondly, the States, after a peace, are to have four hundred thousand crowns a year out of the remainder of Flanders, which is then to be left to Spain. And lastly, suppose all these acquired dominions will not bring a penny into their treasury, what can be of greater consequence, than to be able to maintain a mighty army out of their new conquests, which, before, they always did by taxing their natural subjects?

How shall we be able to answer it to king Charles III, that while we pretend to endeavour restoring him to the entire monarchy of Spain, we join at the same time with the Dutch to deprive him of his natural right to the Low-countries?

But suppose, by a Dutch barrier, must now be understood.only what is to be in possession of the

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States;