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The amusement and diversion they speak of was the suggestion of a treaty
_proposed by the enemy_, and announced from the throne. Thus the people
of England felt in the _eighth_, not in the _fourth_ year of the war. No
sighing or panting after negotiation; no motions from the opposition to
force the ministry into a peace; no messages from ministers to palsy and
deaden the resolution of Parliament or the spirit of the nation. They
did not so much as advise the king to listen to the propositions of the
enemy, nor to seek for peace, but through the mediation of a vigorous
war. This address was moved in an hot, a divided, a factious, and, in a
great part, disaffected House of Commons; and it was carried, _nemine
contradicente_.
While that first war (which was ill smothered by the Treaty of Ryswick)
slept in the thin ashes of a seeming peace, a new conflagration was in
its immediate causes. A fresh and a far greater war was in preparation.
A year had hardly elapsed, when arrangements were made for renewing the
contest with tenfold fury. The steps which were taken, at that time, to
compose, to reconcile, to unite, and to discipline all Europe against
the growth of France, certainly furnish to a statesman the finest and
most interesting part in the history of that great period. It formed the
masterpiece of King William's policy, dexterity, and perseverance. Full
of the idea of preserving not only a local civil liberty united with
order to our country, but to embody it in the political liberty, the
order, and the independence of nations united under a natural head, the
king called upon his Parliament to put itself into a posture "_to
preserve to England the weight and influence it at present had on the
councils and affairs_ ABROAD.
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