536 TRADING WITH THE ENEMY AND October as good as dead, he was still hoping that the other powers might follow the British lead and encourage the Dutch in the same direction. The emperor infinitely approved of the view that the prohibition would be in accordance with his Avocataria against trade with France, and had announced to the congress an inten- tion of carrying it out in all parts of the empire. The Swiss and Italian mails were to be opened in Germany and all French correspondence taken out. With this fresh encouragement Dursley again approached Heinsius and the Spanish minister, whose concurrence, for the Spanish Netherlands, was also necessary. Their replies were not so satisfactory as could have been wished. The Spaniards would move when the Dutch moved. Heinsius would press the states, but it was with the states that the decision lay and there was little chance of their being persuaded. 1 The British diplomatists had made efforts to persuade the Dutch regents already. About the time of the second memoran- dum to the states -general an anonymous pamphlet in French was published at The Hague, in which the current arguments against the plan were well and reasonably answered. It was the work of Dr. Aglionby, the British secretary, who had experi- ence of postal affairs and had gone closely into the question. 2 He assumes the justice of the war and, with a pessimism that may have been exaggerated for the purpose in hand, he says : II ne paroit que trop que les armes seules n'en viendront pas a bout aisement sur tout tant que la France tirera de l'argent du pais meme de ses ennemis. II est indubitable qu'elle en tire nonobstant la rigueur des defences de negoce, laquelle est tous les jours eludee par la subtilite des marchands de tous les pais. The criticism that if one route were stopped up, other and more roundabout overland routes could be opened, he answered by saying that these again, whether through the Swiss cantons or through the duchy of Milan, could be closed by the method for which, as we have just seen, the emperor was soon to express approval. These detours, too, would be long and uncertain, and they could only be used with great changes in the existing system of banks of exchange. This argument has the air of 1 Dursley's dispatches in State Papers, For., Holland, 222, especially 1/11 April, 20/30 May; letter of Hop, 15/25 April 1690 (Arch. Burg. Diplom. Miss. S. ii. 6, 7, 8, Gemeente-Archief, Amsterdam). 2 The title is Quelques considerations sur la necessite cTinterdire le commerce des lettres avec la France, The Hague, 1690. Aglionby acknowledges the authorship in his dispatch to Wane on 11/21 April 1690 (State Papers, For., Holland, 221), though not explicitly in his dispatch to Vernon on the same date (ibid.). Though he does not give the title and though the copies he enclosed are not preserved with the dispatches, the insinuation in D., Quelque reponse a quelques considerations, &c. (dated 24 April 1690), p. 3, that the author of Quelques considerations is an Englishman makes as good as certain the identification I have made in the text. For an account of Aglionby's life see Notes and Queries, 12th ser., ix. 141 f .
