ページの画像
PDF
ePub

terms with his brother, who is in Holfand, and laughs at the court's making • use of him as a negociator. I believe he

is a man who would be very useful, if the affairs of England fhould be brought to extremities 7?

If is obfervable, that in Barillon's difpatches, there is but a very

account of any fervices received from SYDNEY, for which the money is money is pretended to have

[ocr errors]

been paid to him; his affiftance in the

こす

profecution of the earl of Danby being the

nefs to England's entering into a league with Holland, are as follow: 'Je ne lui ai donné que ce que votre • Majesté m' a permit. Il auroit bien voulu avoir

،

• d'advantage, & fi on lui faifoit quelque gratification

[ocr errors]

i

nouvelle, il feroit aifé de l'engager entierement.

Cependant il eft dans des difpofitions fort favourables

< pour ce que votre Majefté peut defirer, & ne ' voudroit pas que l'Angleterre & les Etats Géné

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

of great views, and very high defigns, which tend to the establishment of a re

public. He is in the party of the Inde pendents, and other fectaries; and this party were mafters during the late troubles. They are not at present very powerful in parliament, but they are strong in London; and it is through the intrigues of the fieur ALGERNON SYDNEY, that one of the two fheriffs, named Bethel, •has been elected 19.2

i IF these papers are confidered as genuine, there are many who may think it fomewhat extraordinary, that SYDNEY should have been fo averfe to an alliance with Holland, as he is reprefented in a paffage lately quoted. But it should be remem bered, that the views and fentiments of men were, in many refpects, extremely different in that age, from what they are at

" Dalrymple, p. 287.

R 4

prefent.

prefent. SYDNEY, and others of the popular party, were apprehenfive that the union with the prince of Orange might be of dangerous consequences to England. They thought, that the prince of Orange might' re-unite in his person the power of the states-general, and of England together;" and they confidered it as a kind of funda-" mental principle, that the house of Stuart and the house of Orange were infeparably united, and that their common intereft would engage them to augment their power both in England and in Holland". It is t well known, that fimilar jealoufies, of the ambitious designs of the house of Orange, had been before entertained by the famous De Wit, and others of the more zealous Republicans in Holland.

SUPPOSING the money mentioned in Barillon's papers to have been really paid

2 Vid. Dalrymple, p. 129, 313.

to

to SYDNEY, we have no proof that it was received by him for his own ufe". But, in truth, we have no evidence that it was ever received by him at all. No man would think it just in his own cafe, that he should be condemned, either in his life-time or afterwards, upon the mere affertion of another that money had been paid to him, without the leaft proof of its being received, or any collateral evidence to fupport the affertion.

"If the teftimony of Lord Howard could be relied on, (which it evidently cannot, from the known profligacy of his character) it would appear, that Mr. SYDNEY fometimes made ufe of money to advance the scheme of exciting an effectual oppofition to the government. Lord Howard fwore at Mr. SYDNEY'S trial, that he was "with Col. SYDNEY, and faw him "" put about fixty guineas in his pocket, which, he " said, were for Aaron Smith." It is represented in the trial, that this Aaron Smith was fent into Scotland, to excite fome of the leading men there to join with the English malcontents.

FROM

E

« 前へ次へ »