able to weather a gale.  She had not a regiment that was not ill paid and ill disciplined, ragged and famished.  Yet repeatedly, within the last two years, she had treated both William and the States General with an impertinence which showed that she was altogether ignorant of her place among states.  She now became punctilious, demanded from Lewis concessions which the events of the war gave her no right to expect, and seemed to think it hard that allies, whom she was constantly treating with indignity, were not willing to lavish their blood and treasure for her during eight years more.

The conduct of Spain is to be attributed merely to arrogance and folly.  But the unwillingness of the Emperor to consent even to the fairest terms of accommodation was the effect of selfish ambition.  The Catholic King was childless; he was sickly; his life was not worth three years’ purchase; and when he died, his dominions would be left to be struggled for by a crowd of competitors.  Both the House of Austria and the House of Bourbon had claims to that immense heritage.  It was plainly for the interest of the House of Austria that the important day, come when it might, should find a great European coalition in arms against the House of Bourbon.  The object of the Emperor therefore was that the war should continue to be carried on, as it had hitherto been carried on, at a light charge to him and a heavy charge to England and Holland, not till just conditions of peace could be obtained, but simply till the King of Spain should die.  “The ministers of the Emperor,” William wrote to Heinsius, “ought to be ashamed of their conduct.  It is intolerable that a government which is doing every thing in its power to make the negotiations fail, should contribute nothing to the common defence."800

It is not strange that in such circumstances the work of pacification should have made little progress.  International law, like other law, has its chicanery, its subtle pleadings, its technical forms, which may too easily be so employed as to make its substance inefficient.  Those litigants therefore who did not wish the litigation to come to a speedy close had no difficulty in interposing delays.  There was a long dispute about the place where the conferences should be held.  The Emperor proposed Aix la Chapelle.  The French objected, and proposed the Hague.  Then the Emperor objected in his turn.  At last it was arranged that the ministers of the Allied Powers should meet at the Hague, and that the French plenipotentiaries should take up their abode five miles off at Delft.801 To Delft accordingly repaired Harlay, a man of distinguished wit and good breeding, sprung from one of the great families of the robe; Crecy, a shrewd, patient and laborious diplomatist; and Cailleres, who, though he was named only third in the credentials, was much better informed than either of his colleagues touching all the points which were likely to be debated.802 At the Hague were the Earl of Pembroke and Edward, Viscount Villiers, who represented England.  Prior accompanied them with the rank of Secretary.  At the head of the Imperial Legation was Count Kaunitz; at the head of the Spanish Legation was Don Francisco Bernardo de Quiros; the ministers of inferior rank it would be tedious to enumerate.803