the four great crowns now in alliance succeed, a new system of power and property must take place in Europe. This is not only obvious to common sense, but demonstrable by notorious proofs. Not only the dominions of Prussia, but those of Hanover are to be wrested from their former possessors and shared between the invaders, particularly France and Austria; while the other two powers of the alliance are to be contented with what they can secure for themselves.

This view of the Austrian schemes would, however, be very imperfect, did we here omit laying before the reader one observation; namely, that as it is by no means the interest of this house that the princes of the empire should be too powerful, so the figure she now makes is owing to the greatness of those very powers she now endeavours to suppress; not to reduce, but to ruin. Systems of power are no other than combinations of interests; and every fluctuation of interest produces an alteration of system. He who some years ago should have heard of the present system, would have thought it incredible, and would never have conceived that the Elector of Hanover and the house of Austria would have embraced separate interests, and acted in contradiction to all their former maxims. Leopold, the grandfather of the present queen of Hungary, the most bigotted prince of his age, joined heartily in every measure that could aggrandize the house of Hanover; because he thereby secured his interest in England. His two sons, except in a few unnatural starts, followed the same maxims for the same reason; but France has had address enough to suppress the natural jealousy of her ancient rival, and now the object of its terror is changed. Germany is now truly destroying itself, and feels all the miseries of a civil war, without expecting a change for the better; which is generally the effect of intestine commotions.

CHAPTER V.-OF THE UNITED PROVINCES.

We now take our leave of Germany and proceed to the United Provinces; but in reality provinces united only in name. Perhaps their importance in the government of the European republic is now nothing: their spirit is lost, or directed into wrong channels; their councils are factious or direct wrong operations; they let individuals batten on the spoils of their constitution; with all the feebleness of luxury, they indulge all the vanity of unperforming threats and inactive resentment. France is not only now their neighbour but their master, prepared to pour in its myriads upon their little spot of ground, once saved from the sea, and now in danger of as formidable a deluge. No longer do we see there the industrious citizen planning schemes to defend his own liberty and the liberty of Europe, but the servile money-meditating miser, who desires riches to dissipate in luxury, and whose luxuries make him needy. All the spirited memorials presented them on the part of Great Britain to vindicate her honour and their own; all the warm remonstrances made them by their best patriots, have produced nothing but new cause for discontent and faction, and fresh instances of a selfish spirit and a desire of being slaves. What shall we think of such a people? or shall we give up their case as desperate? By no means! Calamity may again reduce them to their pristine virtue; and as here light follows darkness, their potent neighbour will not be long ere he gives them reason to summon all their constancy and all their courage. Their beautiful palaces, gay equipages, and all the gilded trappings that adorn inventive luxury, will only serve to invite the invader; for never did history furnish a single instance of a country very wealthy and very weak, that was not at last the prey of its more

potent and poorer neighbours. But still I say, their calamity may bring them to an exertion of their former virtue; for in no country is that political maxim more likely to take place—that dominion is to be maintained by the same arts with which it was acquired. Like the old Romans, they owed their rise to oppression; and when the like circumstances returned, they had recourse to the same measure; which was the election of a Stadtholder, and which saved them as effectually as that of a Dictator did the Romans. But the wanton exercise of the measure defeated its ends in both countries. While the Dutch had recourse to it only in times of extremity, it always answered the purposes expected from it; but as that distress was always brought upon them by the prevalence of French councils or arms in their country, there has still been a perpetual opposition between the people and their natural government, which is republican. The members who compose the body of the legislature and who consider themselves as distinct from the people (the never-failing consequence of riches long continued in the same family), succeeding to their magistracies by a kind of never-failing rotation, have ever been fond of the protection of France. The maxims of the De Witts, who were the first who may be properly said to have rendered the government of the United Provinces aristocratical, rivetted this principle in their government. On the other hand, the common people ever lean to the family of Orange and a Stadtholdership; since by that means their liberties were first secured. The critical rise of William III. to that high office was effected by a violent convulsion in their state, and it long operated to salutary purposes for public liberty. The accession of the royal dignity to that of Stadtholder, his unabating zeal against France, and the sincere love he ever bore his country, rendered him the darling of that people. He bent all the subordinate

branches of their government to the ply of his own favourite passion, which was the hatred of France, and he chanced to be happy in the choice of his creatures; for his spirit remained in that republic for some years after he was dead. The magistracy of Holland soon, however, resumed their ancient principles.

The superiority which the Duke of Marlborough obtained amongst them upon the death of King William was only apparent, and was in reality balanced by D'Albuquerque, and the other leading members of the republic; who were very well pleased that France was diminished in power, but invariably opposed all measures for carrying the war into the vitals of France, as the Duke of Marlborough and the other allies had one year actually projected. Had not the English, therefore, at this time, the utmost reason, upon any terms, for concluding a peace? The Dutch, it is certain, had infinite advantages through the continuance of that war; and though they opposed a peace, it was only to prolong the benefits they reaped from war; for certain it is, they have ever appeared desirous of involving England in quarrels, without sharing the danger themselves. Their merchants look upon those of England as rivals in trade, and consider war as the proper interval in which they may step in and monopolize the whole. But though immediate profit may be the consequence of such politics, their posterity will severely feel their defects; they will find England strong at sea, and capable of giving laws to the ocean, merely from a long habitude of war.

But to proceed: King George the First and his friends continued to have a strong party in their government, which balanced the party that was ever in the French interest; and by this means the republic, though it made no acquisition in strength, lost but little of its former vigour, until the year 1726, when they began to lean

entirely to the French interests; some through fondness and others through fear. The residence of Van Hoey, a man weak by nature, rendered more so by age, who was their ambassador in France, gave Cardinal Fleury an opportunity of bringing the great members of their government back to the French principles, which had been long sown in their republic. Still, however, the people had courage sufficient to thwart their governors, or at least to intimidate them from pursuing any measures avowedly in favour of France. The marriage of the Prince of Orange with the eldest Princess of England, still further contributed to suppress the French faction, and gave the republic once more an opportunity of resuming its former lustre. In the late war against France, they were brought with the utmost difficulty to take a part; but their visible backwardness in that war, to call it by no harsher a term, proved that the spirit of their government was averse to it. The people, among whom a love of country and the honour of their ancestors is always last remaining, plainly saw the treachery of their governors to the common cause, and were resolved once more to have recourse to a dictator, and the late Prince of Orange was elected Stadtholder. We shall not enter into any disquisition whether this creation was made at that period of distress that would justify it in point of sound policy; but his death, that happened soon after, blasted all the hopes the public had conceived of his virtues, which were undoubtedly as great as any that ever had existed in that family. The minority that succeeded, notwithstanding all the wise provisions made by the late princess, notwithstanding her virtues and abilities, has been of infinite prejudice to the cause of liberty in that country; and now the French party have got a complete victory, and seem to dictate every measure which is pretended to be enacted for public safety. This unfortunate commonwealth has already tamely sub