INTRODUCTION.

WAR was proclaimed by England and by France, acting in alliance, against Holland, in March 1672. This was England's second Dutch war of the reign of Charles the Second. It was preluded by long negotiations with France, and by three successive treaties, showing to us who know all the particulars, which at the time were mystified and concealed, the immorality and wickedness of English government at that period. A secret treaty had been concluded at Dover on June 1, 1670, signed by M. Colbert, the French Ambassador, on the part of France, and by Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, Sir Thomas Clifford, Comptroller of the Household and Commissioner of the Treasury, and Lord Arundel of Wardour and Sir Richard Bellings, two unofficial Roman Catholics, on the part of England. That secret treaty engaged Charles the Second to declare himself a Roman Catholic, for which Louis XIV. was to pay him two millions of francs, and, in the event of anticipated disturbances in England, to provide him with the aid of six thousand foot soldiers, raised and maintained at the expense of Louis. The two Kings agreed to make war together with all their forces against Holland, and neither was to make a treaty of peace, truce, or armistice without the other's consent. The time for declaring war was to be left to Louis. After Charles had publicly declared his change of religion Louis was to undertake the war by land; Charles sending and maintaining six thousand men, commanded by a general who should obey Louis or his Commander

in Chief. Charles undertook the burden of the war by sea, Louis sending thirty ships of war and ten fire ships, and maintaining them at his expense. The English fleet was to consist of at least fifty large ships and ten fire-ships; the French auxiliary squadron to be commanded by a Vice-Admiral or Lieutenant-General, who would obey the Duke of York in virtue of powers given him by the two Kings, each for his own ships. Louis was to pay Charles three millions of francs a-year while the war lasted. As to conquests, England's portion was to be the islands of Walcheren and Cadsand and the port of L'Ecluse. This secret treaty was ratified by the two Kings on the 14th of June, 1670, by an interchange of letters mutually addressed by one to the other, and sealed with their respective private seals.1

The knowledge of this secret treaty was confided only to the Duke of York and to the four signataries, Arlington, Clifford, Lord Arundel of Wardour, and Bellings. Nothing was known of it by other high officers and members of the Cabinet or Cabal, by the Duke of Buckingham who was ostensibly Prime Minister, by Lord Ashley or by Lord Lauderdale, by Sir Orlando Bridgman, the

This secret treaty was first published by Dr. Lingard, in 1830, in his History of England, from the papers of Lord Clifford, one of the signataries. An account of it had been published in 1682, by the Abbé Primi, in Italian and French, at the, instigation of Louis XIV. but the Abbé's book was immediately suppressed on strong representations from the English government. The substance of Primi's statements was published in England immediately after the Revolution. Hume, who published his volumes of Charles II.'s reign in 1756, made no allusion to Primi's book or the secret treaty. Bishop Burnet refers to the Abbé Primi's book (Own Time, i. 503), and so does Edmund Calamy in his Autobiography, written before 1731 (Life and Times, i. 69). Calamy, in the same passage, mentions a sermon of Archbishop King, preached in Dublin in 1691, in which he gives an account of the treaty, derived from a paper found in Lord Tyrconnel's closet. Lord Tyrconnel at the time of the treaty was Colonel Richard Talbot, a favourite of the Duke of York.

Lord Keeper, or by Sir John Trevor, Arlington's colleague as Secretary of State. It was judged necessary to prepare a second treaty for publication, in which nothing should be said of the King's professing the Roman Catholic religion; and for this second treaty the aid of Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale was procured, Buckingham to be the chief negotiator, and all three to be kept in ignorance of the existence of the secret treaty. The Protestant feelings of Ashley and Lauderdale were feared by the secret conspirators, and the secret was kept from Buckingham, not from fear of his principles, but from fear that he would chatter and betray the secret. The wiles and artifices employed by the secret conspirators to delude Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, during negotiations which were prolonged for six months, are a marvellous and disgraceful episode of English history. On the last day of the year a second treaty was signed, again by Colbert for France, and for England by Buckingham, Arlington, Lauderdale, Ashley, and Clifford. This new treaty, intended for publication, represented the two millions of francs, which by the secret treaty were to be given to Charles for declaring himself a Roman Catholic, as an addition to the first year's French subsidy of three millions; and nothing was said in it of French aid to subdue rebellion in England. Louis had vainly endeavoured to obtain Charles's consent to a secret engagement to be entered into by the Commissioners who had signed the secret treaty on June 1, that the present treaty for publication should be held null and void, except where it differed from the secret treaty. When the treaty was signed, Charles signed a declaration that the two

This second treaty is called traité simulé in the French documents. See Dalrymple's Memoirs, and Mignet, Négociations relatives à la Succession d'Espagne.

millions of francs which he was to receive in two instalments, and were represented as for preparations for war, in addition to the first year's subsidy of three millions, were really given him in view of his declaring himself a Roman Catholic, as had been agreed by the secret treaty.

There had been many changes of sentiment and much negotiation, disingenuous on both sides, as to when Charles should make his declaration of the Roman Catholic religion. Louis had in the first instance wished Charles to postpone the declaration until after the declaration of war, and Charles in the first instance had been loth to postpone it. At that time Louis wished to begin the war in the spring of 1671. Charles, daunted by the difficulties which he thought might follow the anouncement of his change of religion, became willing to postpone it, but doubted his being able to be ready so soon for war. Then Louis changed his mind, and wished the declaration of war to be postponed for a year. But he instructed Colbert not to inform Charles of his wish for postponement; he was to let delay come, as Louis then felt sure that it would come, from Charles. Strange to say, Charles was now eager to begin war in the spring of 1671. Later, Charles agreed to the postponement. This agreed upon, Louis made an attempt to postpone the payment of the sum which he had promised in consideration of Charles's promised declaration of the Roman Catholic religion, and made another attempt to induce Charles to fix the time for this declaration. Charles resisted these two attempts, and they were abandoned. The treaty, concluded on December 31, fixed April or May, 1672, as the time for beginning war. The time of Charles's declaring the Roman Catholic religion was not fixed, and this part of the conspiracy between the two Kings never came to pass.