ith which they
were at present threatened.

While these two powerful factions struggled for superiority, every
scheme for defence was opposed, every project retarded What was
determined with difficulty, was executed without vigor. Levies, indeed,
were made, and the army completed to seventy thousand men;[*] the prince
was appointed both general and admiral of the commonwealth, and the
whole military power was put into his hands. But new troops could not
of a sudden acquire discipline and experience: and the partisans of the
prince were still unsatisfied, as long as the perpetual edict (so it
was called) remained in force; by which he was excluded from the
stadtholdership, and from all share in the civil administration.

* Temple, vol. i. p. 75.

It had always been the maxim of De Wit's party to cultivate naval
affairs with extreme care, and to give the fleet a preference above the
army, which they represented as the object of an unreasonable partiality
la the princes of Orange. The two violent wars which had of late been
waged with England, had exercised the valor and improved the skill of
the sailors. And, above all, De Ruyter, the greatest sea commander of
the age, was closely connected with the Lovestein party; and every one
was disposed, with confidence and alacrity, to obey him. The equipment
of the fleet was therefore hastened by De Wit; in hopes that, by
striking at first a successful blow, he might inspire courage into the
dismayed states, and support his own declining authority. He seems to
have been, in a peculiar manner, incensed against the English; and
he resolved to take revenge on them for their conduct, of which, he
thought, he himself and his country had such reason to complain. By
ihe offer of a close alliance for mutual defence, they had seduced the
republic to quit the alliance of France; but no sooner had she embraced
these measures, than they formed leagues for her destruction, with that
very power which they had treacherously engaged her to offend. In the
midst of full peace, nay, during an intimate union, they attacked
her commerce, her only means of subsistence; and, moved by shameful
rapacity, had invaded that property which, from a reliance on their
faith, they had hoped to find unprotected and defenceless. Contrary
to their own manifest interest, as well as to their honor, they still
retained a malignant resentment for her successful conclusion of the
former war; a war which had at fi