of a War It was begun by the Council and instigation of the States to secure their Dantzick trade and was continued and prosecuted under the prospect and assurance of relief from them Many of the Danish Court notwithstanding the calamities they suffered by this second War were not heartily sorry for it because it gave them an opportunity of bettering by the help of their Allies those grievous conditions which necessity had extorted from them at such a time when no friend could help them The States General indeed sent them Relief but such as served their own turn not that of the Danes The Dane expected no less than to be reinvested in all those Dominions and Possessions which the former War had wrested from him And moreover in compensation and satisfaction for the spoil and ravage of the whole Kingdom of Denmark by the violation of a Peace so solemnly and lately established to be reinstated into some or all those Lands and Territories which the Broomsborow Treaty had transferred to the Suede assisted in that War by the Hollander that so both Crowns might return again to their former limits and boundaries They who cut off the flower of the Suedish Cavalry in Funen what hindred but that they might have landed in Zeland Winter came not on so fast but the Fleet might have sailed four Leagues and it was no more to Zeland though more to Lubec If they wanted Foot Copenhagen could have spared them five thousand and they might have had ten thousand more for fetching from the Confederate Army in Holstein and Jutland But this needed not the Suede had not five thousand Foot upon Zeland nor so good a Body of Horse as he had left upon Funen besides the Horse of the Confederates was better then before having received an encrease of strength from the spoils of their Enemy But unhappy that Prince who wages a War against a stronger than himself not by his own strength but by that of his Confederates and still more unhappy when those Confederates are jealous and distrustful of his future growth and greatness The Alliances of States are Convenience not Friendship Interest not Affection a reason of the head not a passion of the heart The poor exhausted Dane after all his former and later sufferings must stoop again under the heavy yoke of the despised Roschild Treaty The dividing of the Banks of the Sound betwixt the two Crowns accommodated Holland as well as England That necessity which first cast the Dane upon the Dutch Alliance if removed might make him recoil from it to keep him poor was to keep him humble and so dependent And yet that the States General might seem to do something more than the bare relief of Copenhagen or which is all one more then the bare securing of their own Trade in the Baltic They urge and obtain that the Government of Drontheim in Norway be restored again to the Dane to the intent those barren mountains might make some satisfaction and amends for the plunder and spoil of a fertil Kingdom much more exhausted and more cruelly harassd by this second War then it had been by the former And yet 't is worthy considering whether in this also the Dutch did not as well gratifie themselves as the Dane partly because Drontheim better accommodated their Norway-Trade whiles in the hand of the Dane then when in that of the Suede partly in regard of the Levies of men which the Dutch usually make amongst the Norwegian Mariners by the favour of the Court of Denmark in times of War and partly for better recovery of those moneys which some particular Companies of Amsterdam had advanced to the King of Denmark upon the Gage and Pledge of the dependencies of Drontheim The controverted Isle of Hueen is adjudged to the Suede The Isle of Bornholm which during this last War had voluntarily returned to the obedience of her former Master must be restored again to the Suede after the expiration of one year or else exchanged for an equivalent In all the other material points excepting that of Drontheim the Roschild Treaty is renewed and reconfirmed and remains to this day the standard and measure betwixt these two Northern Crowns There is one thing more observable with which I shall conclude The onely benefit and advantage which Denmark has received by this last War amidst many losses and sufferances was occasional and accidental and for which the Dane has no obligation to any of his Confederates because it sprang meerly from the contingencies of the War It was this The Crown of Denmark had been Elective for above two hundred years in the present Oldenburg Family The chief Power of Electing being in the Nobility gave them the means and opportunity of capitulating advantages to themselves as previous conditions to the Election with every succeeding King to the despoiling and debilitating of the Crown and to the prejudice of the other Orders of the Kingdom None but a Nobleman could buy or possess in his own right any Seignory or Mannor A Citizen or Burgher was not capable of purchasing more than a House and it may be a Garden and Orchard or such like slender curtilage The Lands and Revenues of the Crown were let to Noblemen it may be not to the third sometimes not to the fourth part of what they were really worth and yet the King must not Enhance the old Rents though in the mean time the Nobles rackt the poor under-Tenants to the utmost The Pesants upon the Danish Isles were Villains regardant to the Mannors of Noblemen such as the Civilians call ascriptitii glebae All publick Offices and preferments were appropriated to the Nobility there was no room left for a single and unendowed Desert Birth had precluded Merit and the priviledges of Bloud had forestall'd the rewards of Vertue By which constitution Denmark from an anciently glorious and most renowned Monarchy had in a succession of some Ages dwindled and degenerated to that State and condition which to avoid offence I sorbear to name But upon occasion of this second War the better to encourage the Burgers of Copenhagen to stand couragiously for the Defence of their King and Country lest the hope and expectancy of bettering their condition under a new Master should prompt them to desert their old great privileges were proposed and conferred upon them Such as these An equal admission to Offices and Honours as they and their Children should render themselves capable and deserving A power of purchasing Lands and Lordships with the same rights as Nobles The City to be one of the Estates of the Kingdom and to have a suffrage in all publick Councils and Resolves And the Crown is also delivered out of the Guardianship of the Nobility being changed from Elective to Hereditary So that now in Denmark there is a more healthful and better proportioned distribution of strength and nourishment to all parts of the Body of that Governwhereby the whole is become more vigorous and
City found his house well fraught with rich goods which the best of the Inhabitants had conveyed thither as to a sanctuary against the plundering Suede And yet this testimony is due to the person of the Danish King that he comported himself with a magnanimous constancy and firmness amidst all these misfortunes 'T is not irrational to suppose that if the King of Sueden had been truly informed of the state of the Town he would not have slipped the most advantagious opportunity he ever had of taking Copenhagen But though he knew all was not well with the Dane yet he did not know the worst and being already laden with a heap of prosperities crowded beyond expectation upon him esteemed it more prudential to lay hold on those eminent and securer advantages offered him by Treaty than to depend upon the issues of War subject to vicissitudes Yea 't is not irrational to believe that some of the wiser heads in the Suedish Court did not heartily desire to see their King Master of Copenhagen lest the commodiousness of the situation preferable to that of Stockholm should invite either him or his Successor to make that the capital seat of the Monarchy whereby Sueden should in process of time have insensibly degenerated from a Kingdom to a Province The minutes of the Treaty were in few days concluded at Torstrup upon which a cessation of Arms immediately followed And from thence the Mediators and Commissioners removed to Roschild to digest more at leisure those summary Articles into the body of a Treaty Ten days were spent upon that Affair till the whole was fully perfected and finished And then the respective Instruments were in solemn form signed and sealed by the Mediators and Commissioners on both sides and interchangeably delivered each to other Which from the place where it was finally concluded though begun at Wardinburg agreed at Torstrup yet finished here was denominated the Roschild Treaty By this Treaty the King of Denmark was a great loser if we consider what he quitted but it may as well be said he was a great saver if we consider what he kept For he who had lost all in the field could not reasonably expect to regain it in the cabinet And though some of his principal branches were lopt off which in time might grow again yet the root was preserved which else had been lost without resource So that it was but an expression of tenderness to his King and Countrey what the Danish Rix Hofmaster a right worthy person whisperd into the ear of the English Mediator Utinam nescirem literas The lands and Territories which by this Treaty were alienated and transferred from Denmark to the Crown of Sueden were the Provinces of Sconen and Bleking as for Halland I reckon the Suede had that before likewise the Isle of Bornholm and the two Governments of Bahuys and Drontheim in Norway The English Mediator had two parts to act in this Scene one was to moderate the Demands as far as he could in favour of the Sufferer without disobliging the Suede by a too notorious partiality The other was to watch lest any thing be stipulated betwixt the two Kings prejudicial to the Interests of England It was moved that the whole Kingdom of Norway should be rent off from Denmark and united to Sueden with which it lay contiguous This intrenched upon England as giving the Suede the sole and entire possession of the chief materials as Masts Deals Pitch Tar Copper Iron c. needful for the apparel and equipage of our ships too great a Treasure to be intrusted in one hand The Mediator in avoidance of this was the first who insinuated the Proposal of rendring Sconen and Bleking to the Suede which would cut off that unnecessary charge both Crowns sustained in garrisoning a Frontier each against other by enlarging the Suedish Dominions to the bank of the Sound the ancient and natural boundary of Sueden This though uneasie to the Dane because of the vicinity of those Provinces to Copenhagen the Metropolis yet was safe for England because by this means the Suede is become Master of one Bank of the Sound as the Dane is of the other though the accustomed Duty of passage the best flower in the Danish Garland was by this Treaty reserved wholly to the Dane Thus the Power over that narrow entry into the Baltic being balanced betwixt two emulous Crowns will be an effectual preventive of any new exactions or usurpations in the Sound which occasioned a fierce War betwixt them in the year 1643. In which the States General judged themselves so nearly concerned England being at that time most unhappily embroild with Intestine Commotions and not in condition to look after her concerns abroad that they sent a considerable Fleet of War to the assistance of the Suede by help whereof the Dane was beaten and forced to a dishonourable Treaty at Broomsborow as was before mentioned And the Duties payable in the Sound were from that time regulated as they now stand at this day An Article had been framed obliging both Kings to hinder the passage of any forrain Fleet of War into the Baltic which though directly and immediately levelled against Holland yet obliquely and remotely reflected upon England with which the English Mediator not being satisfied caused the word inimica to be inserted and then the sense was this that both Kings to their power should endeavour to impede the passage of any forrain Fleet of War Enemy of both Crowns By which the edge of the Article was rebated and the King of Sueden displeased thereat after acquiesced This Roschild Treaty thus concluded bears date February the twenty sixth 1658. or as we in England write 1657. and was ratified by both Kings under their Royal Seals and signatures together with the seals and subscriptions of the Senators of both Kingdoms according to the time and manner prescribed by the Articles The next thing which in order followed was the solemn interview betwixt the two Kings at Frederiosburg a Palace of the King of Denmark about four leagues from Copenhagen the most magnificent of any in the North. Thither both of them went and which is remarqueable without any previous stipulations concerning Guards or number of Followers usually practised betwixt doubtful Friends but with a frank and Northern simplicity without any seeming distrust each of other Yet the King of Denmark had at least five hundred horse with him being those who were formerly drawn out of Schonen besides his ordinary Foot-Guards in Livery and the several Gentlemen and Officers of his Court The King of Sueden had not above four hundred and those not so well mounted or armed as the other The Danish King set forwards from his House about two English miles or more to meet the Suede upon his way from Poschild Both Kings at a competent distance alighted at the same time out of their Coaches and saluted by joyning their right hands then both entred the Danish Coach
case was much varied and the justice of the quarrel more questionable it being clear that in the first War the Dane had been the Aggressor Cronenburg made but a faint resistance and cowardly yielded after about three weeks siege which supplied the Suede with a mighty store of ammunition of all sorts besides several brass Guns of an immense weight purposely cast and planted there to command the passage of the Sound At Copenhagen it was quite otherwise there was a considerable Garrison of Soldiers in it with good Officers besides several Companies of stour and well resolved Burgers The Danish King considering the Town no longer as seated in the Heart of his Dominions but become Frontier by the loss of Sconen within view of Copenhagen had employed many hands during the Summer in fortifying and repairing the works regular enough before but much decayed The waters being all open the Marishes Lakes and false grounds about the Town had rendred it in great part inaccessible These in the former War were all frozen and as if communicating with the rigour of the Season the bloud and spirits of the Inhabitants were congealed also But now all flowed again Anger and Indignation against the Perfidie as they deem'd it and insatiate Avarice of the Suede inspired the Dane with Courage But nothing held up their spirits more than the infallible assurance Monsieur Beuning the Dutch Ambassador gave them who upon the first Intelligence of the Suedes landing posted home to advertise his Superiors thereof that the States General would in few weeks send them Relief Neither could they have weathered out so outragious a storm had the Sheat-Anchor of Holland failed them The Suede finding the Town in too good a condition to be carried by Assault was constrained to a formal siege by way of approach The Fleet had blocked up the Harbour as the Army had on Zeland side begirt the Town but it was still open to the Ammak which I cannot call an omission because to have planted a Leaguer on that side would have required another Army For this little Isle though united to Copenhagen by a long bridge is disjoyned from the rest of Zeland by broad flats covered with water and a deep Channel in the midst so that a Leaguer on the Ammak could have had no communication with that on Zeland In the Winter ensuing when the waters upon the flats were frozen the the Suede by the benefit of the Ice often visited that Quarter where a Party of Danes being abroad and the Prince of Homberg advancing with a Squadron of Cavalry to repel them but pressing too forward upon the Danish Rear had his Leg struck off with a Cannon shot To be short the Danes defended themselves with great Gallantry and Loyalty their King animating them with his presence and pitching his Tent upon the Rampart bid his fellow-soldiers Caesar-like not Go but Come The Cannon of which they had some hundreds upon the walls plaid freely upon the besiegers not without considerable execution But not content with this they made several brisk sallies into the Suedish Trenches with such success that they began at length to despise that Enemy whom so lately they had feared The Suede lost many good Officers and Soldiers amongst whom Count Jacob de la Gardie Lieutetenant of the Infantry was slain by a Granade During this time the Elector of Brandenburg was entred Holstein and Jutland with a gallant Army of which the Elector was Generalissimo for the Emperour as King of Hungary but the Imperial Troups were Commanded by Montecuculi and a great Body of Polish Horse by old Zarnetsky Prince Palatine Sultsbach who Commanded in those parts for the Suede being too weak to appear before so potent an Enemy retired first into the fastness of Ditmarsh afterwards into Fredericsode Which the Suede soon after demolished as requiring greater numbers of men than he could well spare thence transporting himself into Funen lay intrenched in those Islands whither the Confederates for want of shipping could not follow him The Elector summoned and took the Castle at Gottorp the Mansion and Residence of the Duke of Holstein who though he Honoured his Family by matching his excellent and most deserving Daughter to a great King yet his active Son in Law involv'd the good old Duke in many troubles unwelcome to his age and humor He himself was retired to Tonning a strong Town of his own and not long after died One thing I had almost forgot the more considerable because both Kings were personally engaged in the Action The Suede observing that the Dane daily fetched provisions from the aforementioned Isle the Ammak which contained four or five villages and was about so many English miles in length was resolv'd to make a descent in order to burn the Villages and destroy whatever might afford sustenance or relief to the besieged For which purpose he put aboard about twelve hundred foot and four hundred horse and the King himself would needs be of the party thinking nothing so well done as where he was present as well as naturally ambitious of sharing personally in the Glory of every brave Action Coming to the height of the Draker he forced his landing upon the point of the Isle and constrain'd them upon the Guard to abandon their Post. He marches up the Isle and destroys all before him and the Dane fearing he came to fortifie some Post on that side set fire to the Village next adjacent to the Town as the Suede had done to the rest Having done his Work the Suede retreats to his boats too securely some scattered from the Body others encombred with plunder mean while the Danish King sallies out in person with three hundred horse and two hundred dragoons besides some few commanded foot mounted behind falls in upon the Suedish Rear slew several of them and put the rest in disorder The Suedish King mounted upon an unruly Horse bounding and curvetting with him ran great hazard of falling that day into Danish hands But the Dane either not knowing all his advantages or not willing to be drawn too far from his Town by an over-eager pressing upon an Enemy who out numbred him sounded a seasonable Retreat The same King not long before narrowly escaped another danger passing in a small boat a head of a Galliot under sail in a strong Current the Galliot overset the boat the Steers-man was drowned but the King saved upon the Galliot It was now October 1658 when the much expected Dutch Fleet began to appear consisting of thirty eight men of War six Fire-ships about three score Fluits Galliots and other Vessels with betwixt three and four thousand Auxiliary Foot and all sorts of Provisions for the relief of Copenhagen The Fleet was Commanded by General Opdam who came to an Anchor off the Lapsand about half a League below Cronenburg The Suedish Fleet was forty two sail some of them stout Ships Commanded by General Wrangel who was High Admiral of Sueden and
to their several tasks and services that being practised to the handling and carrying of their Engins they might be the less embarassd thereby when they had occasion to use them in good earnest The first and second Night nothing was done but as they marched out of the Camp they returned orderly again the Dane either not perceiving or making shew not to do so The third Night the Suede drew out as before but with full resolution to make the Attack Several Troops of dismounted Cavalry were intermixed with the Foot and a good Body of Horse to sustain them and if need were secure a Retreat The King commanded in Person and put himself under the Covert of an old bank little more than musket-shot from the Town ready to give Orders as occasion required The Cannon of the Town was all pointed low to flank and rake the Ditches and Counterscarps and the Dane never fired till the Enemy was under the Works and ready for their Attack But then plied them so furiously with great and small shot Cartridges Hand-granades Bombs from Mortar-pieces besides others rould down from the Walls that the Suede was repulsed with great slaughter the rest of his men disordered the Engins broken and the whole Enterprise confounded Which the King perceiving commanded a Retreat and sent at the same to Sir William Vavasor to forbear the Attack on the other side but the Orders coming too late found him dead upon the place with many of his followers The Suede lost in this Action Erick Steinbock General of the Artillery with many brave and old experienced Officers both Germans and Suedes According to the King's List taken from the Muster-Roll there were slain five hundred thirty four and eight hundred ninty five Wounded the Dane reports them more perhaps the poor innocent Boors whom the Suede too cruelly enforced to help carry down their Engins and Utensils might encrease the number of the slain The Suedish Arms were some time after more prosperous in reducing the Isles of Langland Laland Falster and Moenen to the great enlargement of their Quarters and Accommodation of their numerous Horse who in some places began to be straitned for want of Forrage In the Spring of the year the English Fleet arrived in the Sound under General Mountague not with any intention as some vainly suggested to assist Sueden in the Conquest of Denmark That had been impolitic and irrational for 't is evident the conservation of Denmark is the common Interest as well of England as of Holland neither was there at that time the least fear or danger of any such supposed Conquest The Elector had an Army in Jutland of near thirty thousand men Brandenburgers Poles and Austrians and could have been as many more if either the Countrey could have supported their numbers or the service required them De Ruyter having joyned Opdam with another Fleet of forty sail the Dutch besides the Dane were near fourscore men of War in those Seas De Ruyter had brought upon his Fleet forty Companies more besides the thirty eight Companies formerly brought by Opdam Had the War been mannaged in good earnest and not by Confederates who have different Aims and Interests and had the Army in Copenhagen for so I may now call it joyned with that of Brandenburg a thing easie to have been effected by such Fleets and all this mighty force united under one Head it had been sufficient not only to have beat the Suede out of the Danish Isles and Dominions but out of Sueden it self Besides the Suede was at that time involved in a War against the Emperour Pole Brandenburger Muscovite Dane and Hollander Add to this that the weak side of Sueden is towards Denmark and the Suedish King has sometimes told-one in private that were he King of Denmark he could conquer Sueden in two years Which though it may seem to have something of the Rodomontade in it may yet to a States-man be of some Instruction England though sorry for this second repture with Denmark thought it not their Interest to see Sueden overset and sinking under the mighty weight of so powerful a Confederacy but to buoy it up out of those quick-sands it was fallen into as being the most proper and necessary counterpoise which England had at Sea against the combined Naval strength of Holland and Denmark Without which Counterpoise England in every War with Holland her emulous and Rival State and that which stands in the eye and aim of all her Greatness and Glory in point of Trade and Sea-Dominion would run a great risque of being excluded from the Baltic and by that means shut out from the Market of all her Naval Stores The old King of Denmark Christiern the fourth was too stomachful to truckle under the Dutch Lee he fought them in Person when weakned with old Age and being wounded by a splinter of his Ship to the loss of one of his Eyes his cloaths besmeared with blood are preserved as a Relique to this day But in the Reign of his Son and Successor the now Frederic the third the Dane considering the Suede his ancient and hereditary Enemy had by his new Conquests in Pomeren and Liefland invested himself in so many considerable Ports of the Baltic he twisted his Interest too weak of it self to hold against the Suede with that of Holland who having a concentric Interest with that of the Dane in regard of their east-East-land Trade both States drawing together by a mutual Cooperation tied the fast knot of a strict Alliance And from that time forward the Danish Court which in the old Kings time was used to lofty Danish spoke nothing now but Low Dutch Yea so prevalent were the Dutch Councils at Copenhagen that 't is most certain the first War against Sueden was declared and denounced by the Dane at the instigation of the Dutch to the end that by this revolution they might better open and secure their Trade with Dantzick and the Prussian Ports obstructed and endangered by that formidable Impression the Suede had made upon Poland How well the Dane was rewarded for this Service the sequel of this Narrative will declare The Design of the English Fleet was to advance and if need were to inforce a Peace upon the dissenting King on the terms and conditions of the Roschild Treaty pursuant to what the English Mediator who upon occasion of this second War followed the Suede out of Germany into Denmark again had by repeated instances urged upon both Kings Which as things then stood was conceived the most proper medium for accommoding present differences and preventing future inconveniences the Business requiring the greater haft for fear the War continuing and the Confederates vigorously pursuing their point the Suede should either totally be ruined or the Dutch profiting upon his desperate condition should capitulate from him particular advantages to themselves prejudicial to the Interest of England Therefore in case of an obstinate repugnancy to the
his Countenance having besides his natural Courage the Art of concealing all inward emotions and disturbances under a free and masculine appearance and by seeming to fear nothing deserved to be feared Not but that in conversation he would often testifie a tender resentment for the loss of so many brave men who he thought deserved a better destiny The Prince was so far from being disgraced that the King during his absence made him Commander in Chief of all his Forces in Zeland For the Winter coming on and the Dutch Fleet sailing towards Lubec to Victual and soon after putting into Port and the Enemy at Land breaking up their Campagne gave the King leisure to pass over into Sconen and so to Gottenburg where he held a Convention of the States of his Kingdome for the better facilitating of such new Levies of men and other Contributions which were thought necessary for carrying on his many Wars to some desirable conclusion And as his leisure permitted he intended to make an Excursion to Stockholm that City much desiring to see their King after four years absence But his incessant Labours Care and Watchings brought him to a sharp defluxion that a Feaver and that his end He was cut off in the strength of his days not forty years of Age a Prince of undoubted Courage and unwearied Industry low of stature but of aspiring thoughts of a gross and heavy body of a quick and active mind No man of wit or courage could want Employment in his Court and he had the singular advantage of a happy judgment in discerning men and suiting them to such Affairs to which they were best adapted either by the secret dispositions of Nature or by acquired knowledge His War with Poland covered him with Laurels which bore him nothing but gaudy and unprofitable appearances but the Olive of the Roschild Treaty yielded him nourishing and strengthning fruit His first War with Denmark presented him the fair side of Fortunes medal in the second she turned to him the Reverse He had early been bred a Soldier under General Torstenson in Germany whom he usually called his Master and never named but with great marks of Veneration He passed through the gradations of the Art Military from a Captain of a Troop of Horse to Captain General of as good an Army perhaps as this Age has seen For at the time of the conclusion of the Peace in Germany by the Treaties of Munster and Osnabrug he had under his Command of everal Nations fifty three thoufand Foot and twenty four thoufand Horse in Field and Garrison Besides the Confederate Armies of Marshal Turene and the Landgrave of Hess who acted by concert with him and were at least thirty thousand more He kept to his dying day the Muster-Rols of every Regiment with the names of the Officers some of whom when disbanded upon the Peace he retained by Pensions at his own charge being then but Prince obliging them thereby to his service and foreseeing the use he might one day have of them And has been heard to say that he thought himself a greater man when Captain General in Germany than he was now when King of Sueden He would bewail the loss of so many good places which Sueden demolisht or surrendred and for doing whereof he as Captain General was also constitued Plenipotentiary at the Treaty at Osnabrug amounting to above two hundred Towns Castles and Forts By which it was easie to perceive that he sided in opinion with Chancellour Oxenstiern who when the Spanish Cabal carried all before them at Stockholm having received peremptory Commands from that Court to conclude the Peace in Germany he did it in obedience to the commands of his Superiors but with such regret that he could not forbear to utter those words Anima mea non intravit in secretum eorum He was the son of the Sister of the great Gustaphus Adolphus so famous in the German Story and upon the resignation of his Cosin Christiana was admitted to the Crown of Sueden by the general consent of all the Estates This King thus removed by the stroke of death all things resolv'd into a disposition to a general Peace His Son and Successor was a Minor of five or six years of Age. His Queen was left Regent during the minority of her Son a mild and gentle Lady deriving from the bloud of her Ancestors of the House of Holstein = Gottorp and Saxe a natural candor and benignity She was assisted by the great Officers of the Crown who were willing with peace and quietness to enjoy their share in the Government which the Laws and Constitutions of Sueden allowed them in the minority of their King The Suedes themselves had been harassd and tired out by long Wars and that Martial Nation almost rode off their metal by a more Martial King So that all things conspired on that side to Peace and Settlement On the other side the Queen of Poland a French Lady who had the ascendant in all the affairs of that Kingdom was wrought over by the means of France to a ready Concurrence in a Peace with Sueden Besides that the Pole was of himself readily disposed thereto partly in consideration of the many convulsions and distractions of that Kingdom occasioned by the contrary motions of disagreeing factions and partly in regard of the unprofitableness of a War with Sueden by which much might be lost nothing could be got A Peace is therefore concluded betwixt both Crowns of Poland and Sueden under the mediation of France at a place called Oliva and the Emperour and Brandenburger who were but accessories in the Polish War were easily comprehended in the Peace The onely difficulty was for Denmark the late Suedish King had made great scruple of admitting the States General of the United Provinces as Mediators for composing the War betwixt him and the Dane alledging and declaring that they were parties with the Dane and Enemies to him and that they ought to make their own Peace first before they could be in capacity to interpose for others But the now Suedish Court soon surmounts this difficulty and the four Dutch Deputies Extraordinary who arrived in the summer and went two of them to the Suede and two to the Dane attended with a splendid Retinue I mean with De Ruyter and forty men of War were now accepted by the Suede notwithstanding all former hostilities and provocations as Mediators in the ensuing Treaty This rub being removed the next was the adjusting the terms and conditions of the Peace For the Dane expected his Confederates should have assisted him to the obtaining of such a Peace as might in the conditions thereof have born some proportion to the benefits which they had received by the War and to the loss and hazard which he had sustained For this War of Denmark had drawn the Suede out of the bowels of Poland had delivered the Brandenburger from the imminent danger of having his Countrey made the seat
either in the beginning or the progress thereof Thus if the Suede for I suppose 't is no offence to put such a Case because what 's laid at stake no man can call his own I say if the Suede should lose all in Germany and be turned back again over the Baltic This would redound greatly to the mischief of France whose Interest it is to maintain the Suede in Germany as a check and counterpoise upon the House of Austria the hereditary Enemy of France But this consideration reaches not England because that House has in this last Age been under so sensible a decadency that it gives no longer any just ombrage or jealousie as formerly of any affectation of an Universal Monarchy But yet it may greatly concern England into what hands the Chance of War may throw those places the Suede now possesses Should the Elector of Brandenburg invest himself in the Ports of Pomeren and by that means erect a third power upon the Baltic Nay should the Duke of Curland whose little Dutchy is a Fief of the Crown of Poland and who of later years has affected to put in for a share in the Baltic under the Title of Admiral of that Crown though his design always suppressed by the early jealousies of those greater Powers of Denmark and Sueden should he I say by help of the favour and consanguinity he has with Brandenburg for that House married a Sister of that Elector added to the countenance and assistance of Poland establish a fourth Power upon the Baltic All this would not sensibly touch England for a Reason intimated in that Answer which a Duke of Burgundy once made when it was objected to him how he was no Lover of the Kings of France his Reply was on the contrary he was so great a Lover of them that whereas there was one King of France he wished there were many But if the Dane should seize the Ports of Pomeren or possess himself of Stade and Boxtehude in the Dutchy of Bremen or should he so far profit upon the present Conjuncture as to reinstate himself in the opposite Bank of the Sound which was taken from him in the year 1658. every of these will alter the Case in reference to England For 't is evident that the dividing the Banks of the Sound betwixt the two emulous Crowns as it was done by the Roschild Treaty is greatly to the security and benefit of England To our security in time of War for in case of a War betwixt England and Holland if Denmark incline to Holland which is not unreasonable to be supposed England in friendship with Sueden whilest possessed of one Bank of the Sound will in despight of the other two Confederates maintain the Trade into the Baltie and fetch from thence those materials which are necessary for the apparel and equippage of her Shipping To our benefit in time of Peace and that in reference to Trade and Commerce For 't is a Gain to the Dane to enhance the duties of the Sound but 't is the Interest of Sueden to oppose it because Stockholm and all the Ports of Sueden except Gottenburg being within the Baltic whatever Duties are imposed upon forein Ships in their passage through the Sound are a burden upon the Trade of Sueden The same Reason holds for the Elb where the Dane has Gluestad upon the one Bank the Suede Stade and Boxtehude upon the other If both Banks should come into Danish hands this would more immediately concern Hamburgh and so much the rather because of the old pretensions the Kings of Denmark as Dukes of Holstein have upon that City But it will remotely concern England for it will be in the power of the Dane to exclude us from the Trade of the Elb whenever he pleases Which perhaps he will not do But the Assurances of Princes are not to be founded upon the Will not but upon the Cannot Add to all this that as it is the Interest of France to maintain Sueden as a ballance upon the House of Austria so 't is the Interest of England to preserve Sueden as her proper counterpoise against the Confederate Naval Strength of Holland and Denmark The case thus standing and Sueden having changed the figure it lately made when the Mediation of that Crown was proposed in concert with England by entring into the War and becoming Party There is no Prince in Europe to whom it can so properly appertain to advance the great work of a Mediation as to his Majesty of England The Pope not so fit to interpose in these German Controversies as upon other considerations so particularly upon this because by the Munster and Osnabrug Treaties which are the Basis of the Peace of Germany many of the Lands of the Church and other Ecclesiastical Rights were Alienated and made Secular Which the Nuncio at that time was so far from consenting to that he entred a public Protest against it and Innocent the tenth declared all the Articles relating to Religion to be nul and void The Venetian State remote and though admitted Mediator in the Munster Treaty betwixt the Empire and France yet was not so in the Osnabrug Treaty betwixt the Empire and Sueden Besides the Councils of that Republic face most to the Levant neither does she intermeddle in the Affairs of the Western Princes so much as in former Ages Whilest the King of England besides his Power Interest and Authority seems to be selected by a coincidence of several Providential circumstances to undertake this Work not only Pious but Safe Honourable and Profitable Safe because all the Interessed Princes court the Friendship of the Mediator Honourable because the mediating Prince becomes the Arbiter of others Controversies Profitable because his Ministers being upon the place and privy to the secrets of the contending Parties have the opportunity of espying advantages for securing and promoting their Master's Interests But as in Naturals so in Civils 't is Time ripens all things And 't is the Wisdome of the Head which directs the diligence of the Hand to gather the fruit in its proper season The last War of Germany was of thirty years continuance and the Peace was seven years in treating reckoning from the Preliminaries agreed at Hamburgh to the conclusion of the Peace at Munster and Osnabrug This according to humane conjectures seems not of that duration But mediating Princes are most welcome and successful when the Parties are wearied with the War as those Physicians are most happy who come in the declension of a Disease FINIS Errata Page 117. for revolution read revulsion p. 124. for defensive read defensible p. 143. for left read lost p. 151. for Govern read Government Febr. 165 1659. Nov. 1659. Dec. 1659.