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and the Princes, whose function and duty it was to repress and punish these violations of order, took no steps for that purpose. The States General, for their own protection, were therefore ohliged to place their militia under the command of a Committee. The Prince filled the courts of London and Berlin with complaints at this usurpation of his prerogatives, and, forgetting that he was but the first servant of a Republic, inarched his regular troops against the city of Utrecht, where the States were in session. They were repulsed by the militia. His interests now became marshal ed with those of the public enemy, and against his own country. The States, therefore, exercising their rights of sovereignty, de prived him of all his powers. The great Frederic had died in August, 86. He had never intended to break with France in support of the Prince of Orange. During the illness of which he died, he had, through the Duke of Brunswick, declared to the Marquis de La Fayette, who w T as then at Berlin, that he meant not to support the English interest in Holland : that he might as sure the government of France, his only wish was, that some ho norable place in the Constitution should be reserved for the Stadt- holder and his children, and that he would take no part in the quarrel, unless an entire abolition of the Stadtholderate should be attempted. But his place was now occupied by Frederic William, his great nephew, a man of little understanding, much caprice, and very inconsiderate : and the Princess, his sister, although her hus band was in arms against the legitimate authorities of the country, attempting to go to Amsterdam, for the purpose of exciting the mobs of that place, and being refused permission to pass a military post on the way, he put the Duke of Brunswick at the head of twenty thousand men, and made demonstrations of inarching on Holland. The King of France hereupon declared, by his Charge des Affaires in Holland, that if the Prussian troops continued to menace Holland with an invasion, his Majesty, in quality of Ally, was determined to succor that province. In answer to this, Eden gave official information to Count Montmorin, that England must consider as at an end, its convention with France relative to giving notice of its naval armaments, and that she was arming generally. War being now imminent, Eden, since Lord Aukland, questioned me on the effect of our treaty with France, in the case of a war, and what might be our dispositions. I told him frankly, and with out hesitation, that our dispositions would be neutral, and that 1 thought it would be the interest of both these powers that we should be so ; because, it would relieve both from all anxiety as to feed ing their West India islands ; that England, too, by suffering us to remain so, would avoid a heavy land war on our Continent, which
