apt the one to the other in such measure,
as neither to continue your Majesty's subjects under a heavier burden,
than in reason and justice they ought to bear; nor deceive your Majesty,
your allies, and ourselves, by undertaking more than the nation in its
present circumstances is able to perform.

"Your Majesty has been graciously pleased, upon our humble applications,
to order such materials to be laid before us, as have furnished us with
the necessary information upon the particulars we have inquired into;
and when we shall have laid before your Majesty our observations, and
humble advice upon this subject, we promise to ourselves this happy
fruit from it, that if your Majesty's generous and good purposes, for
the procuring a safe and lasting peace, should, through the obstinacy of
the enemy, or by any other means, be unhappily defeated, a true
knowledge and understanding of the past conduct of the war will be the
best foundation for a more frugal and equal management of it for the
time to come.

"In order to take the more perfect view of what we proposed, and that we
might be able to set the whole before your Majesty in a true light, we
have thought it necessary to go back to the beginning of the war, and
beg leave to observe the motives and reasons, upon which his late
Majesty King William engaged first in it. The treaty of the Grand
Alliance, explains those reasons to be for the supporting the
pretensions of his Imperial Majesty, then actually engaged in a war with
the French King, who had usurped the entire Spanish monarchy for his
grandson the Duke of Anjou; and for the assisting the States General,
who, by the loss of their barrier against France, were then in the same,
or a more dangerous condition, than if they were actually invaded. As
these were the just and necessary motives for undertaking this war, so
the ends proposed to be obtained by it, were equally wise and
honourable; for as they are set forth in the eighth article of the same
treaty, they appear to have been _the procuring an equitable and
reasonable satisfaction to his Imperial Majesty, and sufficient
securities for the dominions, provinces, navigation, and commerce of the
King of Great Britain, and the States General, and the making effectual
provision, that the two kingdoms of France and Spain should never be
united under the same government;_ and particularly, that the French
should never get into the possession of the Spanish West Indies, or