obedience the duty of the sovereign, but this obedience must at length be made passive; and that nonresistance may not wholly vanish from among the virtues, since the subject is weary of it, they would fairly make it over to their monarch. The compact between prince and people is supposed to be mutual; but Grand Alliances are, it seems, of another nature: a failure in one party does not disengage the rest; they are tied up and entangled so long as any one confederate adheres to the negative; and we are not allowed to make use of the Polish argument, and plead Non loquitor. But these artifices are too thin to hold they are the cobwebs which the faction have spun out of the last dregs of their poison, made to be swept away with the unnecessary animals who contrived them. Their tyranny is at an end; and their ruin very near: I can only advise them to become their fall, like Cæsar, and die with decency."

:

SOME

SOME REMARKS

ON THE

BARRIER TREATY

BETWEEN

HER MAJESTY

AND THE

STATES-GENERAL,

To which are added,

The said Barrier Treaty, with the two separate Articles; Part of the Counter-project; the Sentiments of Prince EUGENE and Count ZINZENDORF upon the said Treaty; and a Representation of the English Merchants at Bruges.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1712.

VOL. IV.

ΣΟ

PREFACE.

2

WHEN I published the discourse called, The

Conduct of the Allies, I had thoughts either of inserting, or annexing the Barrier Treaty at length, with such observations as I conceived might be useful for publick information: but that discourse taking up more room than I de signed, after my utmost endeavours to abbreviate it, I contented myself only with making some few reflections upon that famous treaty, sufficient, as I thought, to answer the design of my book. I have since heard, that my readers in general seemed to wish I had been more particular, and have discovered an impatience to have that treaty made publick, especially since it has been laid before the house of commons.

That I may give some light to the reader who is not well versed in those affairs, he may please to know, that a project for a treaty of barrier with the States was transmitted hither from Holland; but being disapproved of by our court in several parts, a new project or scheme of a treaty was drawn up here, with many additions and alterations. This last was called the counter-project; and was the measure, whereby the duke of Marlborough and my lord Townsend were commanded and instructed to proceed in negotiating a treaty of barrier with the States.