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Updated: June 19, 2025
The king never doubted that your high mightinesses would have made proper representations to the two courts newly allied, to demonstrate the injustice of such a proceeding, and the danger that might afterwards result from it.
The king hath so much confidence in the good sense, prudence, and friendship of your high mightinesses, that he makes not the least doubt of your taking the most efficacious measures to clear up an affair of such importance; and of your being pleased, in concert with his majesty, to watch over the fate of a country whose situations and independence have, for more than a century, been regarded as one of the principal supports of your liberty and commerce."
In order thoroughly to scour these pirates from the seas, he expressed the hope that their Mightinesses the States would do the same either jointly or separately as they thought most advisable.
The king commands me, therefore, to recall to your high mightinesses the two-fold right you have acquired to keep the Austrian Netherlands under the government of the house of Austria; and that no other has a title to make the least alteration therein, without the consent of your high mightinesses; unless the new allies have resolved to set aside all prior treaties, and to dispose at pleasure of everything that may suit their private interest.
"We have done all that we were able and bound to do," wrote William of Orange to the Estates, on the 13th of April, 1677, "and we are very sorry to be obliged to tell your High Mightinesses that it has not pleased God to bless on this occasion the arms of the state under our guidance."
I am even told that many among them do verily believe that Holland, of which they have heard so much from tradition, is situated somewhere on Long Island, that Spiking-devil and the Narrows are the two ends of the world, that the country is still under the dominion of their High Mightinesses, and that the city of New York still goes by the name of Nieuw Amsterdam.
They had sent a special despatch to their government, they said, in regard to all those matters, setting forth all the difficulties that had been raised, but had not wished to trouble his Majesty with premature discussions of them. They did not doubt, however, that their High Mightinesses would so conduct this great affair as to leave the King no ground of complaint.
And thus did it fare with the empire of their High Mightinesses, at the Manhattoes, under the peaceful reign of Walter the Doubter, the fretful reign of William the Testy, and the chivalric reign of Peter the Headstrong.
By birth, promotion, and conferred dignities he was subject to the supreme authority of Holland, which for forty years had been a free state possessed of all the attributes of sovereignty, political, religious, judicial, and recognizing no superior save God Almighty alone. He was amenable to no tribunal save that of their Mightinesses the States of Holland and their ordinary judges.
"I told him," said the Ambassador, "that undoubtedly this matter was of the highest 'importance to your Mightinesses, for it was not good for us to sit between two kingdoms both so nearly allied with the Spanish monarch, considering the pretensions he still maintained to sovereignty over us.
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