e possession of some frontier forts near Sluis. Matters were
brought to a head in May, 1784, by the emperor sending to the
States-General a detailed summary of all his grievances, _Tableau
sommaire des pretentions_. In this he claimed, besides cessions of
territory at Maestricht and in Dutch Flanders, the right of free
navigation on the Scheldt, the demolition of the Dutch forts closing the
river, and freedom of trading from the Belgian ports to the Indies. This
document was in fact an ultimatum, the rejection of which meant war. For
once all parties in the Republic were united in resistance to the
emperor's demands; and when in October, 1784, two ships attempted to
navigate the Scheldt, the one starting from Antwerp, the other from
Ostend, they were both stopped; the first at Saftingen on the
frontier, the second at Flushing. War seemed imminent. An Austrian army
corps was sent to the Netherlands; and the Dutch bestirred themselves
with a vigour unknown in the States for many years to equip a strong
fleet and raise troops to repel invasion. It is, however, almost certain
that, had Joseph carried out his threat of sending a force of 80,000 men
to avenge the insult offered to his ships, the hastily enlisted Dutch
troops would not have been able to offer effectual resistance. But the
question the emperor was raising was no mere local question. He was
really seeking to violate important clauses of two international
treaties, to which all the great powers were parties, the Treaty of
Muenster and the Treaty of Utrecht. His own possession of the Belgian
Netherlands and the independence and sovereign rights of the Dutch
Republic rested on the same title. Joseph had counted upon the help or
at least the friendly neutrality of his brother-in-law, Louis XVI, but
France had just concluded an exhausting war in which the United
Provinces had been her allies. The French, moreover, had no desire to
see the Republic over-powered by an act of aggression that might give
rise to European complications. Louis XVI offered mediation, and it was
accepted.

It is doubtful indeed whether the emperor, whose restless brain was
always full of new schemes, really meant to carry his threats into
execution. In the autumn of 1784 a plan for exchanging the distant
Belgian Netherlands for the contiguous Electorate of Bavaria was
beginning to exercise his thoughts and diplomacy. He showed himself
therefore ready to make concessions; and by the firmness o