Europe, the advance of the Turks, and the peril which the ambition of the King of France had occasioned to the whole Christian faith, had determined the King of England, they said, in connection with the Emperor, to insist on the relinquishment of his shameful and ungodly alliance. Individually they had to complain of unpaid debts; of breach of treaty in the maintenance of English traitors; of intrigues in Scotland, both under the late King and since his death, to keep alive an unmeaning and mischievous hostility; of the seizure of the English merchant-ships in their harbours; and the arrest of English subjects resident in France.[1] For their particular injuries they required reparation, with security for the future payment of the pensions, and for a cessation of their vexatious interference with their neighbours; while a reasonable satisfaction must be made for the attack upon the Empire, with such guarantees as would secure the peace of Europe for the future. If these demands were complied with, the King of England was ready and willing to remain on good terms; but an answer must be returned within three weeks, or war was virtually declared, and would be continued by sea and land, till France was compelled into submission.
- ↑ 'These things, so repugnant to the obligation of treaties, with the desire and affection of our sovereign lord as a faithful and Christian prince towards the commonwealth of the faith, now enfeebled and reduced by the invasions of the Turks, through the mean and instigation of the King your master, have induced him to unite and make common cause with his antient ally the Emperor to enforce the just demands of both princes.'—State Papers, vol. ix. p. 389.
