council-pensionary.
The Triple Alliance was plainly an ill-assorted combination. Charles II
cared nothing about the fate of the Spanish Netherlands, and there was a
strong party in England which hated the Dutch and wished to wipe out
the memory of Chatham and to upset the treaty of Breda. Grievances about
the settlement of questions concerning the East Indies and Surinam were
raked up. Both Van Beuningen in London and Pieter de Groot in Paris sent
warnings that the States should be prepared for war and at an early
date, but the council-pensionary pinned his faith on Temple and the
Alliance, and kept his eyes shut to the imminent danger. Meanwhile Louis
had been bribing freely both in England and Sweden, and he had no
difficulty in detaching the latter power from the Alliance. To England
he sent over the beautiful Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, Charles'
favourite sister, on a secret mission to the king, and she was speedily
successful. The offer of an annual payment of 3,000,000 francs and the
possession of Walcheren, which commanded the entrance to the Scheldt,
effected their purpose. A secret treaty was signed at Dover on December
31, 1670, between Louis and Charles, by which the latter agreed, on
being called upon to do so, to declare war upon Holland in conjunction
with the French.

Meanwhile De Witt was so absorbed in domestic politics and in the
maintenance of the burgher-aristocratic party in power, that he seemed
to have lost his usual statesmanlike acumen. He never ceased to work for
the general acceptance of the Concept of Harmony. At last the three
recalcitrant provinces (Friesland, Groningen and Zeeland), when William
had reached his twenty-first year, agreed to accept it on condition that
the prince were at once admitted to the Council of State. Even now De
Witt tried to prevent the prince from having more than an advisory vote,
but he was overruled through the opposition of Amsterdam to his views.
All this time Louis was preparing his great plan for the crushing of the
republic. He succeeded in gaining the promised assistance of England,
Muenster and Cologne, and in detaching from the Dutch the Emperor and
the Swedes. The finances under Colbert were in a flourishing state, and
a splendid army had been equipped by the great war minister, Louvois. It
was in vain that Pieter de Groot sent warnings of coming peril. The
council-pensionary was deaf, and the States-General still deafer. Temple
had left (August, 1