The earl of Rochester repeated a maxim of the old duke of Schom-berg, that attacking France in the Netherlands was like taking a bull by the horns.

He therefore proposed that the allies should stand on the defensive in Flanders, and detach from thence fifteen or twenty thousand men into Catalonia.

He was seconded by the earl of Nottingham; but warmly opposed by the duke of Marlborough, who urged that the great towns in Brabant which he had conquered could not be preserved without a considerable number of men; and that if the French should gain any advantage in Flanders from their superiority in point of number, the discontented party in Holland, which was very numerous, and bore with impatience the burden of the war, would not fail crying aloud for peace.

Being challenged by Rochester to show how troops could be procured for the service of Italy and Spain, he assured the house that measures had been already concerted with the emperor for forming an army of forty thousand men under the duke of Savoy, for sending powerful succours to king Charles.

This declaration finished the debate, which issued in an affectionate address to her majesty.