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DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
have ill consequence for the King to call it upon the petitions that are made. I told him of my Lord Sunderland's letter; he said it was a trick of the Duke of Monmouth's, and that he would write to him about it: after he went to Monsieur Odyke, he told me matters went very well, that they were unanimous against making any alliance with France.[1]
- ↑ The struggle which now took place between the French and English Ambassador, the one to induce the States to enter into an alliance with France, the other to prevent it, is thus described by Ralph.
"About the middle of November, Mr. Henry Sidney was all of a sudden remanded to his post at the Hague, to which the motions of the Count D'Avaux recalled him; and his very arrival at that place, as we are told even in the Gazette, dispelled all those false reports which had of late been so common there. It is also notorious that the said Monsieur D'Avaux had no sooner renewed his negotiations with the States to enter into a defensive alliance with his Most Christian Majesty than Mr. Sidney appeared in the most open and avowed manner his opposer, declaring, as the King himself had before done to the Dutch Minister at Whitehall, in plain terms, that his Majesty would look on such a defensive Alliance as a league against him, and, in case it took effect, would be obliged to frame his measures accordingly; and that on the contrary, in case they rejected the proposal, his Majesty would not only punctually comply with what was stipulated and agreed in the defensive treaty of 1678, but also stand by them to the utmost in case they were attacked by France. And we find the States at this time thought themselves so well authorised to depend on these professions, that they rather seemed to deliberate on the offers of France, for form's sake, than with any disposition to
