ns.....
Votes against the Duke of Marlborough..... Resolutions
against the Barrier-treaty and the Dutch..... Acts
unfavourable to the Presbyterian Discipline in Scotland._

NEGOTIATION FOR PEACE INEFFECTUAL.

The French king was by this time reduced to such a state of humiliation
by the losses of the last campaign, and a severe winter, which completed
the misery of his subjects, that he resolved to sacrifice all the
considerations of pride and ambition, as well as the interest of his
grandson, to his desire of peace, which was now become so necessary and
indispensable. He despatched the president Rouille privately to Holland,
with general proposals of peace, and the offer of a good barrier to the
states-general, still entertaining hopes of being able to detach them
from the confederacy. This minister conferred in secret with Buys and
Vanderdussen, the pensionaries of Amsterdam and Gouda, at Moerdyke,
from whence he was permitted to proceed to Woerden, between Leyden and
Utrecht. The states immediately communicated his proposals to the courts
of Vienna and Great Britain. Prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough
arrived at the Hague in April, and conferred with the grand pensionary
Heinsius, Buys, and Vanderdussen, on the subject of the French
proposals, which were deemed unsatisfactory. Rouille immediately
despatched a courier to Paris, for further instructions; and the duke of
Marlborough returned to England, to make the queen acquainted with the
progress of the negotiation. Louis, in order to convince the states
of his sincerity, sent the marquis de Torcy, his secretary for foreign
affairs, to the Hague, with fresh offers, to which the deputies would
make no answer until they knew the sentiments of the queen of Great
Britain. The duke of Marlborough crossed the seas a second time
accompanied by the lord Townshend, as ambassador-extraordinary and
joint plenipotentiary; prince Eugene being likewise at the Hague, the
conferences were begun. The French minister declared that his master
would consent to the demolition of Dunkirk; that he would abandon the
pretender, and dismiss him from his dominions; that he would acknowledge
the queen's title and the protestant succession; that he would renounce
all pretensions to the Spanish monarchy, and cede the places in the
Netherlands which the states-general demanded for their barrier; that he
would treat with the emperor on the footing of the treaty conclude