ster who had the principal direction of
foreign affairs I lived in friendship with, and I must own to his
honour, that he never encouraged a design which he knew that his court
had no intention of supporting" (p. 141). This was written of the time
when Bolingbroke was in Paris, an adherent of the Pretender. [T.S.]]

From what I have hitherto deduced, the reader sees the plan which the
Queen thought the most effectual for advancing a peace. As the
conferences were to begin upon the general preliminaries, the Queen was
to be empowered by France to offer separately to the allies what might
be reasonable for each to accept; and her own interests being previously
settled, she was to act as a general mediator: a figure that became her
best, from the part she had in the war, and more useful to the great end
at which she aimed, of giving a safe and honourable peace to Europe.

Besides, it was absolutely necessary, for the interests of Britain, that
the Queen should be at the head of the negotiation, without which Her
Majesty could find no expedient to redress the injuries her kingdoms
were sure to suffer by the Barrier Treaty. In order to settle this point
with the States, the ministers here had a conference with Mons. Buys, a
few days before the Parliament met. He was told, how necessary it was,
by previous concert between the Emperor, the Queen, and the States, to
prevent any difference which might arise in the course of the treaty at
Utrecht: That, under pretence of a barrier for the States General, as
their security against France, infinite prejudice might arise to the
trade of Britain in the Spanish Netherlands; for, by the fifteenth
article of the Barrier Treaty, in consequence of what was stipulated by
that of Minister, the Queen was brought to engage that commerce shall
not be rendered more easy, in point of duties, by the sea-ports of
Flanders, than it is by the river Scheldt, and by the canals on the side
of the Seven Provinces, which, as things now stood, was very unjust;
for, while the towns in Flanders were in the hands of France or Spain,
the Dutch and we traded to them upon equal foot; but now, since by the
Barrier Treaty those towns were to be possessed by the States, that
republic might lay what duties they pleased upon British goods, after
passing by Ostend, and make their own custom-free, which would utterly
ruin our whole trade with Flanders.

Upon this, the lords told Mons. Buys very frankly, "That if the