e standing out of the Dutch could have no other
event. For if the confederates had conquered the French, they would
certainly have fallen upon us by way of resentment, and there was no
doubt but the same councils that led us to make a peace would oblige us
to maintain it, by preventing too great impressions upon the French.

On the other hand, I alleged, that should the French prevail against the
Dutch, unless he stopped at such limitations of conquest as the treaty
obliged him to do, we must have been under the same necessity to renew
the war against France; and for this reason, seeing we had made a peace,
we were obliged to bring the rest of the confederates into it, and to
bring the French to give them all such terms as they ought to be
satisfied with.

This way of arguing was either so little understood, or so much
maligned, that I suffered innumerable reproaches in print for having
written for a war with the Dutch, which was neither in the expression,
nor ever in my imagination; but I pass by these injuries as small and
trifling compared to others I suffer under.

However, one thing I must say of the peace, let it be good or ill in
itself, I cannot but think we have all reason to rejoice in behalf of
his present majesty, that at his accession to the crown he found the
nation in peace, and had the hands of the king of France tied up by a
peace so as not to be able, without the most infamous breach of
articles, to offer the least disturbance to his taking a quiet and
leisurely possession, or so much as to countenance those that would.

Not but that I believe, if the war had been at the height, we should
have been able to have preserved the crown for his present majesty, its
only rightful lord; but I will not say it should have been so easy, so
bloodless, so undisputed as now; and all the difference must be
acknowledged to the peace, and this is all the good I ever yet said of
it.

I come next to the general clamour of the ministry being for the
pretender. I must speak my sentiments solemnly and plainly, as I always
did in that matter, viz., that if it was so, I did not see it, nor did I
ever see reason to believe it; this I am sure of, that if it was so, I
never took one step in that kind of service, nor did I ever hear one
word spoken by any one of the ministry that I had the honour to know or
converse with, that favoured the pretender; but have had the honour to
hear them all protest that there was no design t