which would be but common prudence; not for a thing indifferent, which would be sufficient folly; but, perhaps, to our own destruction, which is perfect madness. We may live to feel the effects of our own valour more sensibly, than all the consequences we imagine from the dominions of Spain in the duke of Anjou. We have conquered a noble territory for the States, that will maintain sufficient troops to defend itself, and feed many hundred thousand inhabitants; where all encouragement will be given to introduce and improve manufactures, which was the only advantage they wanted; and which, added to their skill, industry, and parsimony, will enable them to undersell us in every market of the world.
Our supply of forty thousand men, according to the first stipulation, added to the quotas of the emperor and Holland, which they were obliged to furnish, would have made an army of near two hundred thousand, exclusive of garrisons: enough to withstand all the power that France could bring against it; and we might have employed the rest much better, both for the common cause, and our own advantage.
The war in Spain must be imputed to the credulity of our ministers, who suffered themselves to be persuaded by the imperial court, that the Spaniards were so violently affected to the house of Austria[1]; as, upon the first appearance there with
- ↑ The impropriety of this phraseology will appear, if we change the arrangement of the members of this sentence, placing them in their natural order, as thus 'that the Spaniards were so violently affected, to the house of Austria, as the whole king-
