d by his Majesty.

On my return here on Tuesday evening, I went to see our friend.
Nothing has yet been done; but in spite of all that can be done
tomorrow, said he, things will finally go well. He told me also, that
the credit of Sir Joseph Yorke with a certain great personage was
manifest more and more, and that there was no longer room to doubt
that the latter had secret engagements with the Court of London.

I was the next day at the house of the French Ambassador. Their High
Mightinesses had sent him their answer to the Memorial, and he had
sent it back, as not admissible. He has in his pocket the Declaration
of the King, by which the subjects of the State are excluded from his
order in favor of neutrals, and deprived of the privileges which they
enjoy in the ports of the kingdom. It will be soon published. This
affair will do as much good to the Anti-English in these provinces, as
the taking of Bergen-op-zoom did them harm thirty years ago. The time
will come when they will be obliged to have recourse to the city of
Amsterdam, to remove the proscription, which too much complaisance to
the Court of London is drawing upon these Provinces.

Late on Wednesday I went to see our friend. He could only give me one
moment. The answer of the States-General to the Memorial of the
French Ambassador is the same as that adopted by a majority in the
States of Holland, excepting some additions which are not material.
The Deputies have not even consulted their respective Provinces
thereon; another blow given to the constitution. One of the Deputies,
with whom I had some conversation, gave me as the only excuse;--"_It
is not the first time we have done it._" I have seen a letter from an
able hand, in one of the Provinces, wherein much censure and heavy
reproaches are cast on this method of proceeding. Friesland can least
of all dispense with the commerce of France.

_January 2d._ There is today a grand concert at the _Hotel de France_.
The Court is there. The Ambassador does the reverse of what is
practised at the theatre; he began with the farce, and will finish
with the tragedy. They flatter themselves here, that he will not press
matters, because they have given him to understand that they have
convoked the Admiralty to deliberate more fully on the convoys. But
they do not say what all the world knows, that they have sent the
rejected answer to the Ambassador of the Republic at Paris to endeavor
to have it accepted by the Ki