A REPRESENTATION of the present Affairs and Interests of the most considerable parts of EUROPE more especially of those of the NETHERLANDS As they now stand in the beginning of the year 1677. Laid open in a Letter from Holland By a Lover of Truth and Peace Anno Dom. 1676 7. SR Upon some serious Considerations lately had by us both touching the great Confusion and Calamities of sundry parts of Europe particularly of the Netherlands you were pleased to put such a value upon my judgement beyond it's deserts as to ask my opinion of the source progress of those Evills together with my Advice concerning such Remedies as might restore the Lands to their former rest and the Inhabitants to their ancient foelicity and safety Sr This was not the work of One day nor is it now possible in one Letter to comprehend so ample a Relation or discussion of those things wherein so many so grand and so various circumstances occur Neither have I now the leisure to reduce them into such a distinct Method as you might expect But according to the severall discourses I daily am accosted with the observations I have made of persons and passages I shall give you a generall view of our Maladies the idea whereof may haply somwhat move your compassion though it cannot have so great an influence upon the affections of your Countreymen as upon those on this side the water who have born and are yet likely to bear the heat and burden of a sad and dolefull day And as for an Esculapius to heal these dreadfull wounds somthing we shall assay though rather wish than hope for such an Expedient unless you in England sensible that when your Neighbours houses are on fire apprehending your own cannot long escape shall be moved to add a helping hand ere it be too late Now Sr for the better answering of your expectation ere I give you my own Observations I judge it not amiss to propose to you the severall sentiments of the 2. great Heads of the present contending parties and sith Our ears are daily filled with the noise of their loud boastings high pretences and mutuall calumniations I take the Freedom to exercise your patience with an account of their own Rhodomantado's which I cannot better do than by personating One of each Nation I shall first introduce the Frenchman who would perswade us to a belief that his King is the onely qualified Prince of Christendom to become Emperour not onely of Europe but of the world And thus you may hear him Flourishing over the encomiums of his King Countrey and Cause In the first place saith the Monsieur I say That my Soveraign Lord and Master His most Christian Majestie is every way qualified for the Soveraign Imperial Dignity and Charge I shall begin with his Person which no man can deny to be the most graceful of all the Princes on earth his mind yet more richly adorned with all the graces and transcendent Excellencies and Endowments which may become a Prince Had he lived in some days no doubt he would have been reckoned amongst the Gods He came into the world with a wonder therefore was he named Dieu done Gods gift and being so miraculously given beyond all expectation 't is a sign he came to do some grand work he being prophecied of by many as if he were to begin or set up the Fifth Monarchy and to me this seems evident for when you shall well weigh what great and glorious things he hath don in raising the Monarchy of France to that degree of height as hath never yet hitherto been known adding thereto so many great Conquests and that in very few years to the astonishment of all the Princes in Europe and the admiration of the Great Turk who you find sends an Ambassadour to treat his Christian Majestie with the Title of Emperour which never formerly was given to any King of France since Charle Main's time and when you shall truly consider the great power of my King at Land and Sea certainly you must yield him to be the most potent of all the Princes of Christendom He is able to bring two hundred thousand men to fight and yet not take three men out of a Parish for 't is undeniable that in France alone and it's limits leaving out Lorrain Burgundy French County and Alsatia he hath within the French Monarchy one hundred and thirty three thousand Parishes But before I speak of his Riches and vast Dominions I ought to mention somthing of the vertues of his mind which are so numerous that certainly never have so many met together in any Prince in our modern times he is all bon Air and curteous beyond expression and yet in labours vigilancie and hazards who ever more sedulous And what Prince ever out-did him in distributions of justice and rewards to the meritorious What encouragements doth he give to the Vertuoso's What pensions are given to the widows and orphans of the brave English and other Nations that have serv'd him well Nor can his own Subjects complain of missing their reward when they deserve it And this his glorious Example hath begotten an imitation in his Subjects What numbers of brave Generalls and skilfull Officers is France plentifully furnished with What a disciplined Army is that of the French none in in the world to be compared to them And if you take notice of the Riches of my King in the Number of his Subjects then you will grant he exceeds all Europe Charle Magne was of opinion that France for it's situation was the most convenient and commodious Countrey of all Europe for making the Residential seat for the Emperour and Charle le Magne had made it so had not these two considerations overswayed viz. 1. That the German Princes and their Countreys might so have taken the opportunity of returning back to their Heathenism to which they were very inclining 2 Sith at the time of his disposall of his possessions amongst his Sons France now so called was under severall Princes and Potentates which Charle Magne in justice could not turn out of their lawfull rights as Languedock Provence Britain Normandy and severall other Provinces But now these and divers more as Lorain Alsatia French County Burgundy and a great part of the Netherlands are of later years added and laid to the Monarchy of France I am of opinion that if my King should joyn with his Majestie of Great Britain they Two might divide the world between them the One to be Emperour at Land the Other at Sea and 't is both reasonable and naturall it should be so for We and the English are So mixt in bloud and our consanguinity such that We are One People The English have been severall ages in France as may be seen by the stately Churches and other Fabricks they built whilst in France Then the Normans possessed and governed England as may appear by the Laws written in the French tongue and yet remaining
oalamità delle quali si può dire che per diversi accidenti habbia dipoi participato una gran parte del mondo par les prodiges qui presageoient cette guerre d'incredibile timore si riempivano i popoli spaventati gia per la Fama della potentia de Francesi c. And indeed King Charles the VIII made himself Master of the Kingdom of Naples in few days by the terrour of his Arms doing it by assault burning the Mount Sr. Iohn passing with his sword through all that was to be found an unheard of Case in those times and he soon lost it again afterwards by his negligence and too little care he had to preserve it But We must not now so flatter ourselvs Their present Monarch know's no less how to conserve than to conquer Provinces If we do but observe the marches of this Imperious Nation on the borders of Germany there we shall see Alsatia turned out of the hands of the Almains and joyned to their Crown a Duke of Lorrain driven out of his own Land 3. Bishops viz. Thoul Metz and Verdun dismember'd from the Empire which He Keeps in continuall divisions and agitations by his Emissaries by his intrigues and by his corruptions Lastly Descending to the Netherlands the Principall Subject of our Discourse It is to be considered in what manner the French have en deavoured to bring them into that miserable Condition wherein we see them at this day and to discover the true cause of their maladies to this end We must have recourse to the reign of Louis the XI King of France who by his subtilty and deceits ruined Charles the Stout Duke of Burgondy and Lord of all the Netherlands stirring him up new Enemies from time to time who at last gathered together before Nancy where he lost his life and his people all their welfare which since that time they never could recover Some years before this Prince who possed Bourgondy all the Netherlands and the Citie Paris being then a Frontier of the Kingdom of France almost whole Picardy did bridle by his intelligence and courage the ambition of this King so full of artifices but because for easing of his people he was not provided with a good and well ordered Militia he came to be surprized by the Other who by his horrible exactions of taxes and laying impositions upon his people was always accompanied and encompassed with a great quantity of armed men the which gave him means and therewith desire to extend his limits in despite of his Neighbours but the matter was well enough ballanced untill the death of Charles the Stout whose death caused to his people an abyss of calamities and miseries seeing Louis the XI at that time kept to himself Bourgondia whole Piccardy Arras and many other considerable places He likewise always amused the English after the death of the said Duke to the end they should not hinder him in the conquests of those Lands Yet by the marriage of Mary of Bourgondy Heyress of the Netherlands with Maximilian of Austria Philip. de Comines Chapit second du 6. Livre as also by the loss of the battel of Guinegate the French could not execute their design to bring under their power the Seventeen Provinces which yet they might very easily have joyned to their Crown The same Author 12. Chap. of the 5. Book by a marriage of their Dauphine with the said Damsel Mary of Bourgondy if the good God had not blinded Louis de XI and taken away his senses and hereby was the way to the Universal Monarchy wonderfully made plain clear for Philip the Fair Son of Maximilian and for Charles the Fifth Then again the Netherlanders took a little breath howbeit They were often incommodated by the invasions of the French who nevertheless found themselvs not in posture to undertake any thing against their Neighbours because of the Parties and leagues which soon after were formed in the bosom of that Kingdom And yet however hindred by so many cruel civil warrs the French quickly recovered again and retook very much vigour by the courage and wise conduct of Henry the Great The Netherlands having been in that intervall always rent by a perpetuall warr in the bowells of their Provinces but all that was not capable of ruining them there was need of the engins of a Cardinal de Richelieu for an absolute abasing of them and reestablishing the French in their ancient splendour and making them after the reduction of Rochel and suppressing those of the Refored Religion to follow on in the footsteps of their glorious Ancestours taking the way of Charlemagne unto the Monarchy to which end they must throw down or debase the greatness of the House of Austria now prodigiously encreased more by Marriages than by Arms which fell out exceeding well He leaving behind him a worthy Successour the Cardinal Mazarin for to atchieve the prosecution of his Designs who would not have missed to emport the Netherlands in case it had not then been prevented by the Queen of France Anna d' Austria who did oblige him to make a marriage between the King Louis XIV and the Infanta of Spain and at the same time to conclude the peace of the Pirenées by which means the rest of the then staggering Netherlands was preserved then were affairs in a tolerable state whereof the good Subjects wished a long continuance and confirmation having begun to tast the sweetness of the Peace When yet in the year 1667 without any denunciation or reasonable cause of war upon a weak cause and pretext of a Custom of Devolution of Fief upon the Children of the First Marriage practised in Brabant and other places in particular houses which had never been confirmed by the Soveraign nor used in Families of Princes the French as an effect of their enterprizing humour invested the best Cities of those Lands the rest whereof cannot maintain themselvs otherwise than by miracles But this deservs a more particular Examination The King Louis XIV having conceived an unchangeable design of reaching hard for the Monarchy of the greatest part of Europe or at lest to limit his Kingdom by the Alpes the Pirenées the Mediterranean Sea the Ocean and the Rhine judging that the Netherlands now in a state of welfare and comliness might serve for a wall of planks for the further propagating of his Conquests Did in the Moneth of May in the year 1667. in time of a full peace without any subject of rupture with Spain and notwithstanding good and positive assuranees of good correspondence and friendship given by his Ambassadour at Madrid march with an Army of 50000 men for to take possession so as they could and not make war of the Netherlands devolved by the death of Philip the IV. King of Spain upon the Queen his Wife and therewith He approached Charleroy which the Spanjards had abandoned because it was not in a State of defence But the
of the Protestants On the contrary He makes them Presidents of Parliaments and Secretaries of State in severall Provinces also Generals and other Officers in his Armies according to their merit Whereas on the other hand the House of Austria will permit no man to have preferment in the Emperours or King of Spains Courts unless he first become a Papist And if you well weigh the horrid hellish and absolutely unwarrantable practices of the Spanish Inquisition then will you with me confess that most of the Evils that have befallen Christendom have had their Rise from that Diabolical Court of Inquisition it makes more Iews in Spain Portugal and Italy than would be occasioned from the worse than Barbarous cruelty practised by the Lords of that Inquisition for say the Iews as you pretend your Iesus was filled with bowels of Love and compassion yet to the contrary you practise worse cruelties than ever did any Pagan I pray also what was the Cause of the Netherlanders Revolt And what were the designs of the Spanjards against Queen Elizabeth in 88 and from whom came that wicked Plot or Gun-powder-Treason in King Iames his days you will answer me these were hatch'd in Spain by the Spanish Inquisition if you cast your eye upon our present Age you will find Messina revolting from the same Cause at lest from the ill Government of the House of Austria which if a man take a view of either in the Kingdom of Naples Milain Sicily or in Spain itself he will behold such disorder in the civil Government that it is a miracle how that Monarchy hath so long continued I thought to have said somthing touching my King his being lineally descended from Charlemagne But that I shall refer to another opportunity and so put a Period to what I have to say upon this high and eminent and just Design Thus have you the Frenchmans Pretences with the Rhetorick used to beget a belief and approbation of the righteous and necessary grounds of their high Undertakings Now please to admit the Spanjard to be heard in his sober Replication and permit me to bring him also upon the Stage making answer to what with patience hath been born out of the Discourse of the vapouring Frenchman And thus the Don begins I acknowledge that the Monsieur like a true-born Frenchman hath made a large Bravado and yet if all were true he hath asserted I doubt not but to give you greater Arguments and Demonstrations to prove that No one Familie in Europe or in the whole world is of that consideration as is my Kings Familie yea I do affirm that No two Kings in Christendom have half the strength in numbers of Subjects and quantities of Countreys and Provinces as are under the Command of my Masters Familie 'T were but time vainly spent to entertain you with answering the Monsieur to that wherein he would impose upon us a belief that his King is lineally descended from Charlemagne For your Conviction 't is but onely casting your eye upon that piece of Treason practised by a Iacobin-Frier on the House of Valois for the bringing in this House of Bourbon of which this Lewis the 14th is the Third But most apparent it is that the House of Austria is a true branch of the Charlovinyans as is evident from severall Historians Touching therefore the Right or Title that either the House of Bourbon or Austria hath to the Imperial Crown I shall not proceed to discourse because 't is so well known where the Right is that this is the first time I ever heard it brought in quaestion But I shall go on to show you why the Imperial Crown ought to remain in the House of Austria First Do but consider what vast numbers of Kingdoms Dukedoms and Segniories the House of Austria doth possess and by that you may judge how much they exceed in Subjects Riches and quantity of Land I will name some of their Possessions viz. the Kingdoms of Leon Aragon Catalonia Navarre Naples Granada Myrcia Valentia Castilia Biscaia Galicia Algarle Cicilia Hungary Bohemia the Dukedoms of Burgondy Milain Austria part of the Netherlands and besides all these many Isles in Europe and Africa as Tenerif the Canary Islands c. Beyond all which if a view could be taken of the large extent of those grand Kingdoms and Provinces Isles and various Territories they have in the East and West-Indies as their Patrimony left them by St. Peter then might you truly grant that to be a reality which hath so long been asserted viz. That the Sun always shines on their Dominions But further if you shall make a comparison between the Riches Traffick and Merchandise of the House of Austria with that of France 't will be evident to you the One is but a Pedlers Shop the Other a Rich Magazin of gold silver pearls silks and spiceries For a Demonstration hereof Do but ask the Englishman what Kind of Merchandizes the French bring over into England and what sort of Trumperie and Pedling-Merchants the French there be The best Merchandise the French furnish other parts of the world with except some salt and wine is little better than Bables and Toys when at the same time We Spanjards send great quantities of Bullion and rich Silks fine Wool c. And as for the French Traders in England Do but observe them and you will find them for the most part Barbers Taylors Perwigg-makers John Potages and a sort of Vermin that onely live so long in England untill they have swell'd themselvs full with the riches of that Land and then they fly to France again and disgorge that Riches on some few acres of Land by which means after a year or two starts up mushrom-like Monsr. Marqués de Chandellé de bel Gantelet or Marq. de peigne Marq. de Valet c. and this great grievance bring the French to all Nations where e're they come that they marry some Fille de Chambre and they two dwelling in Chambers paying no custom or duties make children together and most commonly the Wives and Brats are left to the Parish to maintain nay yet further how is every Prison yea and Hospital fill'd with them in England yea and the gallows too somtimes witness the Frenchman that set London on fire and the Monsieur that kill'd his Master When to the contrary of this I dare be bold to affirm it that there are in all London scarce two Spanish Barbers Taylors or Mechanick Handicrafts-Tradesmen all being great and able Merchants or Bankers Now whereas the Frenchman makes a semblance of Religion and giving freedom to Religious people Let All men judge of this who do but lend their ears to the most deplorable stories of their cruelties in destroying so many hundred Towns and thousands of poor People in the Palatinate in Alsatia Twee-brugge and the circumjacent parts such dreadfull burnings rovings plunderings and tyranny exercised on an innocent people hath not been paralelled in a whole age as
strong whereas on the contrary the Prince of Orange was necessitated to weaken his Army and to send or leave more than ten thousand men in the greatest Cities for fear they should render themselvs then must he have an artillerie well furnished regulated and governed for to open the Campaign to some conquests the Germans being still constrained to stay in their winter-quarters uncapable to act or cause any diversion through defect of forrage in the Netherlands Then after an enterprize don upon any place as is ordinary His Majestie rereturns back re benè gestâ and without any hazard of a battel then makes detachements from Flanders to Germany and so illudeth the great designs of the Allies We conclude then by all this that the irregular ambition of the French their unsatiable avarice their old pretences upon quasi all the Provinces of Europe their will and inclination to robbery their vain inconstant and unquiet humour not permitting their Neighbours to live in rest are the true causes of all the calamities and miseries of Christendom and especially of the Netherlands whom it seems God had placed as in his anger in the midst of Europe to the end they might be the beam of the Ballance Now in this case It is necessary to have recourse to other Remedies under God than those which to this time have been used for the healing us of this French Disease that cometh now to the Noble parts of the Body of the Seventeen Provinces making them rotten and fall off by pieces being in danger of a total destruction Better means know we not than the application of English Mercury to make the Enemies salivate and evacuate what they have with so great greediness swallowed in For whither else shall we betake ourselvs for refuge but to the English for reestablishing the counterpois so necessary for the publick rest and felicity of Christendom and especially of the Netherlands for whose Conservation England is so greatly in it's interest concerned having also received of God the advantage of a situation so excellent as to be fit to keep the ballance of Europe and be an Arbiter of all things therein shewing in effect that it hath reason on all occasions to say Cui adhaerco ille praeest Whom I incline to shall prevail And truly it is a glory for the King of England that whilst Other people are very unable to help or are menaced and so in an appreehension of the terrible forces of the King of France or are overcome by his presents against their own interest or elsely still in a deep lethargy He alone can praescribe limits to the almost endless ambition of the French to bring them to reason and put them in mind that they with their Monarchy now so idolized the designs whereof they believe to be infallible are yet no other than men and subject to change of fortune which would ensue in case the English should take the party of the Allies And what help can there be expected if we cast our eyes on other places for relief Let 's begin with the Alpes there we have an object of astonishment in observing the Low-spiritedness of the Switsers that mercenary people obliged by reason of State and formal Treaties to the guarrantie of the Dukedom of Milain and the French County which yet they suffered not long since to be taken in their sight If we come to Turin there we shall find a Duke de Savoy under the government of a French Mother and depending on intelligences from the French Court and in some sort bridled by the Fort of Pignarol which is the Key of his Land Not far from thence shall we find those of Geneva irresolved trembling for fear prepared to suffer insultings and to make all sorts of curteous addresses for preserving their quiet the conquest of whom would but be as the fruit of one Campagne or it may be of three months time If we enter further into Italie there we shall find Princes weak and timid who will not oppose themselvs against the progresses of the victorious arms of France unless in the greatest extremitie The Republick of Venice in former times called the Buckler of Italie being newly delivered from a grievous war against the Turks shall not engage or but very slowly and putting off so long as they can in a new war against France which might be worse to them than the former I shall not here mention the Pope nor the Great Duke of Tuscany who shall never undertake any thing of themselvs unless what properly relates to the reading of their Breviarie or at best they may be good to contrive a Treaty or to fortifie one that is already made by Others If we pass into Poland and Portugal we shall stand admiring as we might not long since have don in Savoy and Bavaria to see the Mistresses to be French Wives who possess and govern their Husbands kept by the French and driven by the same spirit of ambition to endeavour that Kings greatness and who perswade themselvs that they have don a singular favour to the Allies that they have till this timeforborn to give them some notable diversion which we have reason to apprehend for the future In so much that there is none but his Majestie of Great Britain that is capable and worthy to sustain the quality and heavy though glorious burden of Arbiter and Peacemaker of the troubled world for we shall here leave out as unworthy to be Mediatours the Swedes those mercenary Souls and boutefeus of Germany those infortunate Braves who in stead of procuring the peace and rest of the Empire where of they were Considerable Members have disturbed the tranquility thereof by their unjust invasion into the Lands of an Elector then employed on the Frontiers for the common defence of his Countrey having sold themselvs to France for finishing the combustion of the rest of Christendom There is therefore no other that can sustain the rank and do the function of a true Esculapius to heal our sicknesses by Others incurable but the King of England and that by prescribing to the French such conditions of peace as shall reduce them from beyond the River the Somme to keep within their old limits as in the time of Louis XI in the beginning of his Reign And in case they refuse it there is none but the King of England that can make them swallow Ellebore to purge their brains of those ill humours and fumeswhich corrupt them and blot out of their corrupted imaginations the vast idea's and Chimaera's of their Charlemagne and so to calm all the troubles and tempests of Europe whereof they are the Cause His Majesty shall but follow therein the footsteps of his glorious Ancestors who passed beyond the Seas with numerous Armies to reliev the Netherlands and not suffer them to fall into the hands of the French believing that whole England should be in great danger of destruction Phil. de Comines chap. 1. l. 4.