if they were to take any further part in the war.  This pitiful revelation of the condition of their ally decided Great Britain to respond to the overtures for peace on the part of France.  The representatives of the powers met at Aix-la-Chapelle; and, as the English and French were both thoroughly tired of the war, they soon came to terms.  The preliminaries of peace between them were signed on April 30, 1748, on the principle of a restoration of conquests.  In this treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle the United Provinces were included, but no better proof could be afforded of the low estate to which the Dutch Republic had now fallen than the fact that its representatives at Aix-la-Chapelle, Bentinck and Van Haren, were scarcely consulted and exercised practically no influence upon the decisions.  The French evacuated the southern Netherlands in return for the restoration to them of the colony of Cape Breton, which had fallen into the hands of the English; and the barrier towns were again allowed to receive Dutch garrisons.  It was a useless concession, for their fortifications had been destroyed, and the States could no longer spare the money to make them capable of serious defence.

The position of William IV all this time was exceptionally responsible, and therefore the more trying.  Never before had any Prince of Orange been invested with so much power.  The glamour attaching to the name of Orange was perhaps the chief asset of the new stadholder in facing the serious difficulties into which years of misgovernment had plunged the country.  He had undoubtedly the people at his back, but unfortunately they expected an almost magical change would take place in the situation with his elevation to the stadholderate.  Naturally they were disappointed.  The revolution of 1747 was not carried out in the spirit of “thorough,” which marked those of 1618, 1650 and 1672.  William IV was cast in a mould different from that of Maurice or William II, still more from that of his immediate predecessor William III.  He was a man of wide knowledge, kindly, conciliatory, and deeply religious, but only a mediocre statesman.  He was too undecided in his opinions, too irresolute in action, to be a real leader in a crisis.

The first business was to bring back peace to the country; and this was achieved, not by any influence that the Netherlands government was able to exercise upon the course of the negotiations at Aix-la-Chapelle, but simply as a part of the understanding arrived at by Great Britain and France.  It was for the sake of their own security that the English plenipotentiaries were willing to give up their conquests in North America as compensation for the evacuation of those portions of Belgium and of the Republic that the French forces occupied, and the restoration of the barrier fortresses.