their several
interests by the assistance and support of Her Majesty's
plenipotentiaries; and as for the rest, who would either refuse to
comply, or endeavour to protract the negotiation, the heads of their
respective demands, which France had yielded by Her Majesty's
intervention, and agreeable to the plan laid down in her speech, should
be mentioned in the treaty, and a time limited for the several powers
concerned to receive or reject them.

The Pretender was not yet gone out of France, upon some difficulties
alleged by the French, about procuring him a safe conduct to Bar-le-duc,
in the Duke of Lorraine's dominions, where it was then proposed he
should reside. The Queen, altogether bent upon quieting the minds of her
subjects, declared, she would not sign the peace till that person were
removed; although several wise men believed he could be no where less
dangerous to Britain, than in the place where he was.

The argument which most prevailed on the States to sign the new Treaty
of Barrier and Succession with Britain, was Her Majesty's promise to
procure Tournay for them from France; after which, no more differences
remained between us and that republic, and consequently they had no
farther temptations to any separate transactions with the French, who
thereupon began to renew their litigious and haughty manner of treating
with the Dutch. The satisfaction they extorted for the affront given by
Count Rechteren to Mons. Mesnager, although somewhat softened by the
British ministers at Utrecht, was yet so rigorous, that Her Majesty
could not forbear signifying her resentment of it to the Most Christian
King. Mons. Mesnager, who seemed to have more the genius of a merchant
than a minister, began, in his conferences with the plenipotentiaries of
the States, to raise new disputes upon points which both we and they had
reckoned upon as wholly settled. The Abbe de Polignac, a most
accomplished person, of great generosity and universal understanding,
was gone to France to receive the cardinal's cap; and the Marechal
d'Uxelles was wholly guided by his colleague, Mons. Mesnager, who kept
up those brangles, that for a time obstructed the peace; some of which
were against all justice, and others of small importance, both of very
little advantage to his country, and less to the reputation of his
master or himself. This low talent in business, which the Cardinal de
Polignac used, in contempt, to call a "spirit of negotiating," made