A union of England with France was evidently, he saw, destructive to the interests of the former kingdom; and therefore, overlooking or ignorant of the humors and secret views of Charles, he concluded it impossible that such pernicious projects could ever really be carried into execution.

Secure in this fallacious reasoning, he allowed the republic to remain too long in that defenceless situation into which many concurring accidents had conspired to throw her.
By a continued and successful application to commerce, the people were become unwarlike, and confided entirely for their defence in that mercenary army which they maintained.

After the treaty of Westphalia, the states, trusting to their peace with Spain, and their alliance with France, had broken a great part of this army, and did not support with sufficient vigilance the discipline of the troops which remained.

When the aristocratic party prevailed, it was thought prudent to dismiss many of the old, experienced officers, who were devoted to the house of Orange; and their place was supplied by raw youths, the sons or kinsmen of burgomasters, by whose interest the party was supported.

These new officers, relying on the credit of their friends and family, neglected their military duty; and some of them, it is said, were even allowed to serve by deputies, to whom they assigned a small part of their pay.
During the war with England, all the forces of that nation had been disbanded: Lewis's invasion of Flanders, followed by the triple league, occasioned the dismission of the French regiments: and the place of these troops, which had ever had a chief share in the honor and fortune of all the wars in the Low Countries, had not been supplied by any new levies.
De Wit, sensible of this dangerous situation, and alarmed by the reports which came from all quarters, exerted himself to supply those defects to which it was not easy of a sudden to provide a suitable remedy.