pretensions to their splendid talents. His reign (if I may be permitted to use that term to denominate an authority almost regal) was marked by a succession of disasters, and closed with the conquest of his country and his precipitate flight. If a long train of circumstances, for which the stadtholder could not be blamed, had impaired the resources and weakened the energies of the republic, its fall was undoubtedly accelerated by the feeble and impolitic administration of that prince and his ministers. But the chief cause of his unpopularity, and of the extravagant joy that was displayed on his departure, was his attachment to the court of London. The Dutch had long viewed with bitter jealousy, on account of their own impoverished trade, the flourishing commerce of the British empire, and a mysterious connection highly unfavourable to the republic was supposed to exist between the stadtholder and the English government.
It was reported (with what truth I cannot determine) and received with avidity, that the battle of the Dogger Bank, a combat
