538 TRADING WITH THE ENEMY AND October in value than any the English have there or than what the French have in Holland, 1 because it would stop all bills of exchange and so all commerce, which is the life of Holland. This writer, too, is of opinion that the measure will do no harm to France, but he says quite openly that the old Dutch way of trading with the enemy is better than Leicester's way. With the states of Holland this old way of thinking, as might have been expected, prevailed. They met at the time when Aglionby's pamphlet came out, and the author wrote, when he sent copies of it home, that the Amsterdammers would oppose the plan with all their might. A month later he says that he dare not press the states too hard because an adverse vote by them would affect the Spaniards. Already he had feared that the governor of the Spanish Netherlands was influenced against the scheme by Count Taxis, but the existing state of things was supported by another vested interest far stronger than the count's. The states of Holland adjourned without taking any action, and Dr. Aglionby wrote the epitaph of the British plan : ' We have leapt boldly and no one will follow.' 2 It flickered on uncertainly for some time longer. In the autumn of 1690, when the whole question of allied and neutral trade with the enemy was again before the congress at The Hague, Heinsius wrote to William, with an echo of one of Aglionby's phrases : if the business of prohibiting the correspondence of letters could be done, it would indeed make the greatest effect ; here in Holland it will not have much success, but if only Spain saw fit it would be a fait accompli (for it depends on her alone) and by that means the commerce of the Hanse towns, along with that between the Northern kingdoms and France, must fall sufficiently, since where there is no correspondence with letters, no course of exchange and consequently no commerce can be kept at any great height. 3 Spain seemed to hold the key, and in the spring of 1692 Dr. Aglionby went to Spain with the special mission of ' settling the general correspondency by letters through the kingdome of England without passing through the kingdome of France '. 4 The influence of Count Taxis was against him, 5 and the Spaniards declined to favour the sea-route by closing any other. All that they would concede was that the service should be maintained for letters addressed to be sent by it and as far as possible all northern correspondence. The general question was to be 1 The debts owing from France to Dutchmen and refugees in Holland were estimated at a million gulden (Amst. Vrds. Res. 13/23 March, Gemeente Archief, Amsterdam).
- Res. Stat. Holl. 7/17 March, 10/20 April ; Res. Amst. Vrds. 8/18, 13/23 March,
14/24, 17/27 April. 3 7/17 October 1690 {Archives de la maison d' Orange- Nassau, 3rd series, i. 99). 4 His dispatch of 9/19 March (State Papers, For., Spain, 75). 5 Dispatch of 16/26 April (ibid.).
