In November, the earl of Strafford presented a new plan of peace, in which the queen promised to insist upon France's ceding to the states the city of Tournay, and some other places which they could not expect to possess should she conclude a separate treaty.

They now began to waiver in their councils.

The first transports of their resentment having subsided, they plainly perceived that the continuation of the war would entail upon them a burden which they could not bear, especially since the duke of Savoy and the king of Portugal had deserted the alliance; besides, they were staggered by the affair of the new barrier, so much more advantageous than that which France had proposed in the beginning of the conferences.

They were influenced by another motive, namely, the apprehension of new mischiefs to the empire from the king of Sweden, whose affairs seemed to take a favourable turn at the Ottoman Porte, through the intercession of the French monarch.

The czar and king Augustus had penetrated into Pomerania; the king of Denmark had taken Staden, reduced Bremen, and laid Hamburgh under contribution; but count Steenbock, the Swedish general, defeated the Danish army in Mecklenburg, ravaged Holstein with great barbarity, and reduced the town of Altena to ashes.