This was written of the time when Bolingbroke was in Paris, an adherent of the Pretender.

[T.S.]] From what I have hitherto deduced, the reader sees the plan which the Queen thought the most effectual for advancing a peace.

As the conferences were to begin upon the general preliminaries, the Queen was to be empowered by France to offer separately to the allies what might be reasonable for each to accept; and her own interests being previously settled, she was to act as a general mediator: a figure that became her best, from the part she had in the war, and more useful to the great end at which she aimed, of giving a safe and honourable peace to Europe.
Besides, it was absolutely necessary, for the interests of Britain, that the Queen should be at the head of the negotiation, without which Her Majesty could find no expedient to redress the injuries her kingdoms were sure to suffer by the Barrier Treaty.

In order to settle this point with the States, the ministers here had a conference with Mons.

Buys, a few days before the Parliament met.