their party strongly countenanced the most absurd rumours, that he was in the most formidable conspiracies against the peace of the country and the queen. That, say the Coxe MSS. in the British Museum, he gave "his advice to the duke of Marlborough to suborn bands of ruffians called Mohawks, to scour the streets by night and strike terror into the population." These Mohawks were bands of young men, many of them of good families, but of dissipated and degraded character, who issued into the streets and committed all sorts of riots and brutalities on even women and children, on helpless and infirm men, whom they met with in the badly-lighted city. "These evil doers," says Cunningham, "were never seen in the daylight; nay, many persons averred that they were never seen at all." They created such terror that people began to imagine them demons; as in truth they were, only incarnate.
Well, the tories did not hesitate to attribute to Eugene, and to Marlborough, at his instigation, a design by these miscreants, "to strike terror into the populace, by whom the queen was beloved; to set fire to London in different places, especially the palace of St. James's, where the queen then lodged, where the guards on duty were commanded by an officer in the whig interest; that Marlborough, at the lead of the guards, should seize the Tower, the bank, the public offices, make the queen prisoner, and by terror force her to sign warrants for inquiry into the Jacobite correspondence of Abigail Masham, Harley, and Bolingbroke, put them to death, and force her to dissolve parliament. There is," adds Coxe, "no evidence of the truth of these intentions but the letter of Plunket, the Jacobite." There needed none to demonstrate that the whole was one of the basest and most inhospitable attempts to destroy the character of one of the noblest characters in history, of a man who had rendered the most distinguished services to all Europe, and whose private and public character were alike far above the taint of the subtlest calumny. The attempt upon that character displays the low and detestable grade to which had sunk the whole tory clique of that day, and leaves an additional stain on the names of Harley, St. John, Swift, and the rest of their party, and its tools. Bishop Burnet, who saw much of the prince, bears the same high testimony to his worth as do the continental historians. He says that he was of a most unaffected modesty, and scarcely could bear the acknowledgments which the world paid him; that he descended to an easy equality with those with whom he conversed, and seemed to assume nothing to himself whilst he reasoned with others; that when he (the bishop) talked with him of the scandalous libels that were every day published against the duke of Marlborough, in which they did not even allow him personal bravery, but allowed that he had once been fortunate, the prince replied that that was the highest commendation that could be bestowed upon him, as it implied that all his other successes were owing to his courage and conduct. If anything had been needed to show that the prince had no concern with the Mohawks, as was asserted, this was furnished by the melancholy fact that his own nephew was set upon by them, and was so savagely handled by them that he soon after died. The visit of prince Eugene to this country is one of the most disgraceful and humiliating incidents in our history. Seeing that his mission was utterly useless, he took his departure on the 13th of March, the queen having presented to him on her birthday a sword worth four thousand pounds.
Whilst prince Eugene had been labouring in vain to recall the English government from its fatal determination to make a disgraceful peace, the Dutch envoy. Van Buys, had been equally active, and with as little success. The ministers incited the house of commons to pass some severe censures on the Dutch. They alleged that the States-General had not furnished their stipulated number of troops both for the campaigns in the Netherlands and in Spain; that the queen had paid above three millions of crowns more than her contingent. They attacked the Barrier Treaty, concluded by lord Townshend with them in 1709, and declared that it contained several articles destructive to the trade and interests of Great Britain; that lord Townshend was not authorised to make that treaty, and that both he and all those who advised it were enemies to the queen and kingdom. They addressed a memorial to the queen, averring that England, during the war, had been overcharged nineteen millions sterling—which was an awful charge of mismanagement or fraud on the part of the whig ministers. They further asserted that the Dutch had made great acquisitions; had extended their trade as well as their dominion, whilst England had only suffered loss. The queen gave her sanction to this address by telling the house that she regarded their address as an additional proof of their affection for her person and their attention to the interests of the nation; and she ordered her ambassador at the Hague, the new earl of Strafford, to inform the States of these complaints of her parliament, and to assure them that they must increase their forces in Flanders, or she must decrease hers.
This naturally roused the States, who made a very different statement; contending that, by the treaties, every ally was bound to do all in its power to bring the common enemy to terms; that England, being more powerful than Holland, ought, of course, to bear a larger share of the burden of the war; yet that the forces of Holland had been in the Netherlands often upwards of a hundred thousand, whilst those of England had not amounted to seventy thousand; that this had prevented the Dutch sending more soldiers to Spain; and that, whilst England had been at peace in her own territory, they (the Dutch) had suffered severely in the struggle. To this a sharp answer was drawn up by St. John, and despatched on the 8th of March, of which the real gist was, that, according to the Dutch, England could never give too much, or the United Provinces too little. Nothing could exceed the bitterness of tone which existed betwixt England and the allies, with whom it had so long manfully contended against encroaching France; for the whole world felt how unworthily the English generally were acting under the tory ministry, and this did not tend to forward the negotiations, which had been going on at Utrecht since the 20th of January. To this conference had been appointed as the British plenipotentiaries, the new earl of Strafford—whom Swift, a great partisan of the tory ministry, pronounces a poor creature — and Robinson, bishop of Bristol, lord privy seal. This prelate opened the conference with a
