y of all other people be made an exception of, and be exempt from, the
action of a general edict? The reasons for these orders in council ought
to be closely examined. It would be very difficult to bring the opinions
of the English jurists into harmony with those of the States. Meantime it
would be well to look up such treaties as might be in existence, and have
a special joint commission to confer together on the subject. It was very
plain, from the course of the conversation, that the Netherland fishermen
were not to be allowed, without paying roundly for a license, to catch
herrings on the British coasts as they had heretofore done.

Not much more of importance was transacted at this first interview
between the ambassadors and the Ding's ministers. Certainly they had not
yet succeeded in attaining their great object, the formation of an
alliance offensive and defensive between Great Britain and the Republic
in accordance with the plan concerted between Henry and Barneveld. They
could find but slender encouragement for the warlike plans to which
France and the States were secretly committed; nor could they obtain
satisfactory adjustment of affairs more pacific and commercial in their
tendencies. The English ministers rather petulantly remarked that, while
last year everybody was talking of a general peace, and in the present
conjuncture all seemed to think, or at least to speak, of nothing but a
general war, they thought best to defer consideration of the various
subjects connected with duties on the manufactures and products of the
respective countries, the navigation laws, the "entrecours," and other
matters of ancient agreement and controversy, until a more convenient
season.

After the termination of the verbal conference, the ambassadors delivered
to the King's government, in writing, to be pondered by the council and
recorded in the archives, a summary of the statements which had been thus
orally treated. The document was in French, and in the main a paraphrase
of the Advocate's instructions, the substance of which has been already
indicated. In regard, however, to the far-reaching designs of Spain, and
the corresponding attitude which it would seem fitting for Great Britain
to assume, and especially the necessity of that alliance the proposal for
which had in the conference been received so haughtily, their language
was far plainer, bolder, and more vehement than that of the instructions.

"Considering that th