their allies to act for their
assistance and support. The king of France was engaged in a defensive
alliance with the states; but as his naval force was yet in its infancy,
he was extremely averse, at that time, from entering into a war with so
formidable a power as England. He long tried to mediate a peace between
the states, and for that purpose sent an embassy to London, which
returned without effecting any thing. Lord Hollis, the English
ambassador at Paris, endeavored to draw over Lewis to the side of
England; and, in his master's name, made him the most tempting offers.
Charles was content to abandon all the Spanish Low Countries to the
French, without pretending to a foot of ground for himself, provided
Lewis would allow him to pursue his advantages against the Dutch.[*]
But the French monarch, though the conquest of that valuable territory
was the chief object of his ambition, rejected the offer as contrary to
his interests: he thought, that if the English had once established an
uncontrollable dominion over the sea and over commerce, they would
soon be able to render his acquisitions a dear purchase to him. When De
Lionne, the French secretary, assured Van Beuninghen, ambassador of
the states, that this offer had been pressed on his master during six
months, "I can readily believe it," replied the Dutchman; "I am sensible
that it is the interest of England."[**]

* D'Estrades, December 19, 1664.

** D'Estrades, August 14, 1665.

Such were the established maxims at that time with regard to the
interests of princes. It must, however, be allowed, that the politics of
Charles, in making this offer, were not a little hazardous. The extreme
weakness of Spain would have rendered the French conquests easy and
infallible; but the vigor of the Dutch, it might be foreseen, would make
the success of the English much more precarious. And even were the
naval force of Holland totally annihilated, the acquisition of the Dutch
commerce to England could not be relied on as a certain consequence; nor
is trade a constant attendant of power, but depends on many other, and
some of them very delicate, circumstances.

Though the king of France was resolved to support the Hollanders in
that unequal contest in which they were engaged, he yet protracted his
declaration, and employed the time in naval preparations, both in
the ocean and the Mediterranean. The king of Denmark, meanwhile, was
resolved not to remain an idle spe