made to you for a succour in money, and that you are now enabled to do it beyond what he could hope for. I also approve of the resolution he took to call a new Parliament in order to assemble it in the month of March; and the reasons he relies on persuade me, he could not take a better course; having besides too good an opinion of his wisdom to doubt that any thing can happen which should possibly detach him from the connexions he formed with me.

As M. Avaux writes to me that the Duke of Monmouth on the night of the 20th, left the Hague in great secrecy to cross into England, I am sure I shall hear by your first letters, what measures the court where you are, has taken to withstand the designs that Duke may meditate, and that you will be able at the same time to give me a part of the intelligence I asked of you by my dispatch of the 20th; as it is very likely that the Prince of Orange and Duke of Monmouth's cabals will not remain inactive in the commencement of the new reign, and that it might also be disturbed by the various sects which have an interest in preventing the establishment of our religion.

I have chosen Marshal Lorge to go and compliment the King of England on his accession to the crown, and condole on the death of the late King his brother. I can have no doubt the court where you are must be pleased with what I wrote to you by my dispatch of the 12th, and by the preceding, about the English vessels which trade with the city of Genoa, and I have given orders that the last which was sent into Toulon, should be released, and that henceforth nonè should be disturbed on its voyage; so that as soon as my orders shall reach the commanders of my ships, there will no longer occur any thing that can afford the English cause of complaint.

I send you a letter for the Dutchess of Portsmouth, and on delivering it to her, you may confirm to her the assurances I give her of my protection.

M. BARILLON TO THE KING.

February 26th, 1685.

I received the day before yesterday your Majesty's dispatch of the 20th of this month, by the return of the courier I had dispatched. I repaired instantly to the King of England, and gave him the letter in your Majesty's handwriting, which he was so kind as to make me read: he appeared to me to receive with a deep sensibility the testimonies of your Majesty's friendship; I thought I ought not to wait for another opportunity, nor put off informing him of the care your Majesty had taken to gather in so short a a time, bills of exchange for the sum of five hundred thousand livres, and to send them to me to the end that I might use them in such a way as would suit his service. That Prince was greatly surprized, and told me, with tears in his eyes, "The King your master only is capable of acting in

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a manner so noble and so full of goodness to me; I con❝fess to you that I am more sensible of what he has done "on this occasion, than any thing that can take place during "the remainder of my life; for I clearly see the bottom of “his heart, and how much he desires that my affairs should prosper: He has anticipated my wishes and prevented

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even my wants; I never can be grateful enough for such generous conduct; express to him my gratefulness, and 66 assure him of the attachment which during my whole life "I shall feel for him."

I cannot, Sire, express the joy that Prince had to see so prompt and solid a mark of your Majesty's friendship, and

how readily your Majesty had sent so considerable a suni. In order to take away nothing from what he owed to your Majesty, I told him I should frankly confess to him that, in the confusion in which I was at the moment of the late King of England's demise, I had not thought of dispatching a courier to inform your Majesty thereof, and that I had not represented to your Majesty how important it was to send him a speedy succour; that, if thereby I had committed a fault, it was sufficiently amended by what your Majesty has spontaneously done. The King of England interrupted me, by saying, that he could not enough admire your Majesty's foresight and care in giving him so readily such an essential mark of your amity; that your Majesty should not have cause to regret it; and that he should keep in his mind what your Majesty did to secure the crown upon his head.

As soon as I had left him, he shut himself up with my Lords Rochester, Sunderland and Godolphin, and related to them what I had told him from your Majesty, in terms stronger even than those he had used to me. They came one after the other to whisper in my ear, that I had restored life to the King their master, and that, though he was sure of your Majesty's friendship, this latter proof, so seasonably given, obliged him beyond all measure.

I expected certainly that your Majesty's conduct in this case would produce a good effect, but I did not think I should receive for it so many testimonies of gratefulness, and I see thereby that it had perhaps been intended to inspire the King of England with some apprehension that your Majesty would not make such great efforts to support him. This, however, is an opinion of my own; for I have

always seen in the conversation of his Britannic Majesty a great confidence in your Majesty's friendship.

I am now to give your Majesty an account of what had fallen out the day before, when I had a conference with the three ministers. My Lord Rochester, as president of the council, explained to me in a few words what they were charged by the King their master to tell me, which was to represent to your Majesty the necessity of his affairs, and of how much importance it was to him to be succoured in the beginning of his reign.

My Lord Rochester entered then upon the discussion of the treaty made with the late King of England; we agreed about every thing, even of what was wanting to complete the payment of three years of subsidy elapsed. My Lord Rochester said, there had always been between him and me a difference upon this account, because he had expected and believed that your Majesty would give two millions per annum for three years; that it was true I had said on my side that I never was authorized to promise above fifteen hundred thousand livres for each of the last two years; that this difficulty had not been removed, that the fourth year, which is nearly past, had not even been spoken of, because it was not foreseen that your Majesty would have been willing to discontinue a subsidy to the late King of England, whose conduct in every thing was so agreeable to your Majesty, and which had so little flagged on any occa; sion. I replied to that, I should not choose to speak con fidently on matters of fact unless they were entirely certain, but that I could not go beyond my powers, and had not done it; therefore we were to abide by what we had agreed upon; that I should not omit to represent to your Majesty every thing they had said, to the end that your Majesty

might see what your Majesty should deem suitable to your own service and to the welfare of the King of England's affairs.

My Lord Rochester ended with saying, the ambassador and I never had any serious controversy, for as the King his master's supply was a gratification without conditions, I had no right to quarrel about the amount more or less; I believe however that our mutual transactions promoted the service of both kings, and that they did not fare the worse: He added, that it was his sentiment to continue treating the same way, and to establish a confidence and connexion like that which already succeeded so well. I acceded to his proposition by adding thereto that, though the late King of England had not formally bound himself to renounce his treaty with Spain, he had nevertheless managed that matter in such a way as was to be expected of him; that the present King was still more at liberty; and that he was no wise bound to that treaty, with the execution of which the King his brother had judged himself to be sufficiently dispensed. The three ministers agreed to what I said, and told me that the King their master considered himself as entirely disengaged from the obligation which the late King had contracted, however slight it might be.

I engaged to write to your Majesty to favour efficaciously the propositions which my Lord Churchill was to make your Majesty, for a present and considerable succour. We had yesterday another conference by command of his Britannic Majesty, but there was no longer any mention of what we had discoursed upon in the preceding one. The ministers endeavoured by turns to give me to understand, that they thought they ought no longer to treat of, nor to discuss, the interests of the King their master with me; that