t of the princess in going to the Hague was
to create a civil war, and that there had not been any real insult or
injury. At the same time the States-general acknowledged the justice of
the King of Prussia's complaint, and stated that they had made repeated
applications to the States of Holland upon the subject, but which had
been disregarded. Still determined upon obtaining satisfaction, Fredric
William, by his ambassador at the Hague, now demanded that the States of
Holland should write a letter of apology to the princess; should punish,
at her requisition, those who had been guilty of the offences offered to
her august person; should declare that their suspicions about her object
in going to the Hague were unfounded; should revoke the resolutions
which they had voted; and should accompany this revocation of the
resolutions with an invitation of her royal highness to come to the
Hague, for the purpose of entering into negociations in the name of the
stadtholder, her husband, for the adjustment of all differences. The
States of Holland were not in a condition to withstand a Prussian army,
but still hoping for aid from the court of Versailles, they refused to
accede to these humiliating terms, and issued their orders for laying
the country under water, so soon as any Prussian troops should make
their appearance on the frontiers. Thus braved, the king of Prussia
issued his mandate for war with the refractory states. And in this he
was countenanced by the English government. Although nothing at this
time could have been less agreeable to Pitt than the prospect of a war,
his heart being set on economical reforms and financial arrangements,
yet the reduction of the United Provinces to a state of dependence on
France, as was menaced by the French court, was not to be endured, and
he therefore entered cordially into the policy of the Prussian monarch.
As the friends of the house of Orange were in want of money, Pitt
supplied them with a loan, without the authority of parliament; and he
offered to the States-general, through our ambassador at the Hague,
the mediation of the British government, for the restoration of their
legitimate government under the authority of the stadtholder. But Pitt's
offers of mediation were rejected, and the oligarchical party applied
for assistance to France. The court of Versailles made a regular
notification to that of St. James's of its intention to aid the
States-general, and the British minister