played with Boreel, ambassador of the United Provinces at the court of London; taking advantage of the Estates' necessity in order to serve his nephew the Prince of Orange, he demanded for him the office of captain-general, which had been filled by his ancestors.

Already the prince had been recognized as premier noble of Zealand, and he had obtained entrance to the council; John van Witt raised against him the vote of the Estates of Holland, still preponderant in the republic.
"The grand pensionary soon appeased the murmurs and complaints that were being raised against him," writes M.de Pomponne.

"He prefers the greatest dangers to the re-estab lishment of the Prince of Orange, and to his re-establishment on the recommendation of the King of England; he would consider that the republic accepted a double yoke, both in the person of a chief who, from the post of captain general, might rise to all those which his fathers had filled, and in accepting him at the instance of a suspected crown." The grand pensionary did not err.

In the spring of 1672, in spite of the loss of M.de Lionne, who died September 1, 1671, all the negotiations of Louis XIV.

had succeeded; his armaments were completed; he was at last about to crush that little power which had for so long a time past presented an obstacle to his designs.
"The true way of arriving at the conquest of the Spanish Low Countries is to abase the Hollanders and annihilate them if it be possible," said Louvois to the Prince of Conde on the 1st of November, 1671; and the king wrote in an unpublished memorandum, "In the midst of all my successes during my campaign of 1667, neither England nor the empire, convinced as they were of the justice of my cause, whatever interest they may have had in checking the rapidity of my conquests, offered any opposition.