It was not perceived, that the French empire, now united in domestic peace, and governed by the most heroic and most amiable prince that adorns modern story, was become, of itself, a sufficient counterpoise to the Spanish greatness.

Perhaps that prince himself did not perceive it, when he proposed, by his minister, a league with James, in conjunction with Venice, the United Provinces, and the northern crowns, in order to attack the Austrian dominions on every side, and depress the exorbitant power of that ambitious family.[*] But the genius of the English monarch was not equal to such vast enterprises.

The love of peace was his ruling passion; and it was his peculiar felicity, that the conjunctures of the times rendered the same object which was agreeable to him in the highest degree advantageous to his people.
The French ambassador, therefore, was obliged to depart from these extensive views, and to concert with James the means of providing for the safety of the United Provinces: nor was this object altogether without its difficulties.

The king, before his accession, had entertained scruples with regard to the revolt of the Low Countries; and being commonly open and sincere,[**] he had, on many occasions, gone so far as to give to the Dutch the appellation of rebels; [***] but having conversed more fully with English ministers and courtiers, he found their attachment to that republic so strong, and their opinion of common interest so established, that he was obliged to sacrifice to politics his sense of justice; a quality which, even when erroneous, is respectable as well as rare in a monarch.
* Sully's Memoirs.
** La Boderie, voL i.p.

120.
*** Winwood, vol.ii.p 55.
He therefore agreed with Rosni to support secretly the states general, in concert with the king of France; lest their weakness and despair should oblige them to submit to their old master.