hagen_ (as the King of Denmark has himself owned it in
a public declaration), _pushed on the Northern Confederates to an
enterprise entirely destructive to our Ally Sweden, I mean the descent
designed last summer upon Schonen_?

"_Query II._ In what manner we also must explain that passage in the
first article by which it is stipulated that one Ally shall not either
by themselves or any other whatsoever, act, treat, or endeavour anything
to the loss of the other's lands and dominions; to justify in particular
our leaving in the year 1715, even when the season was so far advanced
as no longer to admit of our usual pretence of conveying and protecting
our trade, which was then got already safe home, eight men-of-war in the
Baltic, with orders to join in one line of battle with the Danes,
whereby we made them so much superior in number to the Swedish fleet,
that it could not come to the relief of Straelsund, and whereby _we
chiefly occasioned Sweden's entirely losing its German Provinces_, and
even the _extreme danger his Swedish Majesty ran in his own person_, in
crossing the sea, before the surrender of the town.

"_Article III._ By a special defensive treaty, the Kings of Sweden and
England mutually oblige themselves, 'in a strict alliance, to defend one
another mutually, as well as their kingdoms, territories, provinces,
states, subjects, possessions, as their rights and liberties of
navigation and commerce, as well in the Northern, Deucalidonian,
Western, and Britannic Sea, commonly called the Channel, the Baltic, the
Sound; as also of the privileges and prerogatives of each of the Allies
belonging to them, by virtue of treaties and agreements, as well as by
received customs, the laws of nations, hereditary right, against any
aggressors or invaders and molesters in Europe by sea or land, etc.'

"_Query._ It being by the law of nations an indisputable right and
prerogative of any king or people, in case of a great necessity or
threatening ruin, to use all such means they themselves shall judge most
necessary for their preservation; it having moreover been a constant
prerogative and practice of the Swedes, for these several hundred years,
in case of a war with their most dreadful enemies the Muscovites, to
hinder all trade with them in the Baltic; and since it is also
stipulated in this article that amongst other things, _one Ally ought to
defend the prerogatives belonging to the other, even by received
customs, and t