will turn the scale
decidedly in favor of the Stadtholder, in the event of their being left
to themselves without foreign interference. If foreign powers interfere,
their prospect does not brighten. I see no sure friends to the Patriots
but France, while Prussia and England are their assured enemies. Nor is
it probable, that characters so greedy, so enterprising, as the Emperor
and Empress, will be idle during such a struggle. Their views have long
shown which side they would take. That France has engaged to interfere,
and to support the Patriots, is beyond doubt. This engagement was
entered into during the life of the late King of Prussia, whose eye was
principally directed on the Emperor, and whose dispositions towards the
Prince of Orange would have permitted him to be clipped a little close.
But the present King comes in with warmer dispositions towards the
Princess his sister. He has shown decidedly, that he will support her,
even to the destruction of the balance of Europe, and the disturbance
of its peace. The King of England has equally decided to support that
house, at the risk of plunging his nation into another war. He supplies
the Prince with money at this moment. A particular remittance of one
hundred and twenty thousand guineas is known of. But his ministry is
divided. Pitt is against the King's opinion, the Duke of Richmond and
the rest of the ministers for it. Or, at least, such is the belief here.
Mr. Adams will have informed you more certainly. This division in the
English ministry, with the ill condition of their finances for war,
produces a disposition even in the King, to try first every pacific
measure: and that country and this were laboring jointly to stop
the course of hostilities in Holland, to endeavor to effect an
accommodation, and were scarcely executing at all the armaments ordered
in their ports; when all of a sudden an inflammatory letter, written
by the Princess of Orange to the King of Prussia, induces him, without
consulting England, without consulting even his own Council, to issue
orders by himself to his generals, to march twenty thousand men to
revenge the insult supposed to be offered to his sister. With a pride
and egotism planted in the heart of every King, he considers her being
stopped in the road, as a sufficient cause to sacrifice a hundred or two
thousand of his own subjects, and as many of his enemies, and to spread
fire, sword, and desolation over the half of Europe. This