imself to be sufficiently dispensed. This appears to be a nice
distinction, and what that degree of obligation was, from which James was
exempt, but which had lain upon Charles, who neither thought himself
bound, nor was expected by others to execute the treaty, it is difficult
to conceive.

This preliminary being adjusted, the meaning of which, through all this
contemptible shuffling, was, that James, by giving up all concern for the
Spanish Netherlands, should be at liberty to acquiesce in, or to second,
whatever might be the ambitious projects of the court of Versailles, it
was determined that Lord Churchill should be sent to Paris to obtain
further pecuniary aids. But such was the impression made by the
frankness and generosity of Louis, that there was no question of
discussing or capitulating, but everything was remitted to that prince,
and to the information his ministers might give him, respecting the
exigency of affairs in England. He who had so handsomely been
beforehand, in granting the assistance of five hundred thousand livres,
was only to be thanked for past, not importuned for future, munificence.
Thus ended, for the present, this disgusting scene of iniquity and
nonsense, in which all the actors seemed to vie with each other in
prostituting the sacred names of friendship, generosity, and gratitude,
in one of the meanest and most criminal transactions which history
records.

The principal parties in the business, besides the king himself, to whose
capacity, at least, if not to his situation it was more suitable, and
Lord Churchill, who acted as an inferior agent, were Sunderland,
Rochester, and Godolphin, all men of high rank and considerable
abilities, but whose understandings, as well as their principles, seem to
have been corrupted by the pernicious schemes in which they were engaged.
With respect to the last-mentioned nobleman in particular, it is
impossible, without pain, to see him engaged in such transactions. With
what self-humiliation must he not have reflected upon them in subsequent
periods of his life! How little could Barillon guess that he was
negotiating with one who was destined to be at the head of an
administration which, in a few years, would send the same Lord Churchill
not to Paris, to implore Louis for succours towards enslaving England, or
to thank him for pensions to her monarch, but to combine all Europe
against him in the cause of liberty, to rout his armies, to take his
to