529 The Dutch Missions to England in i68g THE English revolution marked the beginning of the active alliance of the two sea -powers which lasted for two genera- tions. The accession of a Dutchman to the English throne was certain to make a great change in the relations of the two countries, but it was less certain what kind of change it would bring about, and the negotiations which settled the programme of the alliance are not unimportant. Strictly speaking, of course, the alliance existed before the revolution. In the new treaty which the revolu- tion brought about, no less than seven existing agreements were confirmed,^ and, although most of these were simply the instru- ments by which past differences had been settled and the basis had been laid down for peaceful intercourse after the wars, there was also a treaty of defensive alliance,^ which pledged both parties to support one another if they were attacked and defined the proportions of the contingents each was liable to send. It had been confirmed on the accession of James 11,^ but the exis- tence of a document like this did not stand for much in those days. There were many occasions when such obligations were evaded or ignored, and no one supposed that fidelity to this treaty was one of the first principles of the policy of James II. His biographer, who must have written what he thought would speak well for James's statesmanship, attributes to him a very different intention for the European war which all the world had seen to be brewing : ' his intentions were to engross the trade of the world, while foreign states destroyed each other.' * Contemporary Jacobite pamphlets say the same.^ Had that policy been followed, the tory policy of political isolation from
- The treaty of 24 Augu8t/3 September 1689 in Dumont, Corps Diplomatique,
vn. ii. 236-7, where, however, the date of the marine treaty of October 1674 is wrongly given.
- The treaty of London, 3 March 1667/8, not in Dumont, but in Actea de la Paix
de Nimegue, 2nd edition (The Hague, 1697), ii. 354 ; Rousset, Recueil Historique, xix. 413. ' By the treaty of Windsor, 17 August 1685 (Dumont, vn. ii. 110).
- Clarke, Life of James II, ii. 181.
^ Min Heer T. van C.'s Answer (1690), pp. 1-2, and The Dear Bargain (1692), in Somers Tracts, 3rd series, iii. 231 . The latter is attributed, in the Diet, of Nat. Biog. and the Catalogue of Pamphlets at Lincoln's Inn, to Nathaniel Johnson. VOL. XXXV. — NO. CXL. M m y"
