ped
the said allies would be prepared, at the same time, to follow their
example." Accordingly their lordships employed the three intervening
days, in smoothing the few difficulties that remained between the French
ministers and those of the several confederate powers.

The important day being now come, the Lord Bishop of Bristol and the
Earl of Strafford, having assumed the character of ambassadors
extraordinary,[33] gave a memorial in behalf of the French Protestants
to the Marechal d'Uxelles and his colleague, who were to transmit it to
their court; and these delivered to the British ambassadors a
declaration in writing, that the Pretender was actually gone out of
France.

[Footnote 33: To avoid the parade of ceremony, they had hitherto been
considered only as _plenipotentiaries_. [N.]]

The conditions of peace to be allowed the Emperor and the empire, as
adjusted between Britain and France, were now likewise delivered to the
Count Zinzendorf. These and some other previous matters of smaller
consequence being finished, the treaties of peace and commerce between
Her Majesty of Britain and the Most Christian King, were signed at the
lord privy seal's house between two and three of the clock in the
afternoon. The ministers of the Duke of Savoy signed about an hour
after. Then the assembly adjourned to the Earl of Stafford's, where they
all went to dinner; and about nine at night the peace was signed by the
ministers of Portugal, by those of Prussia at eleven, and when it was
near midnight by the States.

Thus after all the opposition raised by a strong party in France, and by
a virulent faction in Britain; after all the artifices of those who
presided at The Hague, and, for their private interest, endeavoured, in
conjunction with their friends in England, to prolong the war; after the
restless endeavours of the imperial court to render the treaty
ineffectual; the firm steady conduct of the Queen, the wisdom and
courage of her ministry, and the abilities of those whom she employed in
her negotiations abroad, prevailed to have a peace signed in one day by
every power concerned, except that of the Emperor and the empire; for
his Imperial Majesty liked his situation too well to think of a peace,
while the drudgery and expenses of the war lay upon other shoulders, and
the advantages were to redound only to himself.

During this whole negotiation, the King of Spain, who was not
acknowledged by any of the confederates, h