In the mean Time, the States General declined to give any Answer to the Memorial presented by Our Ambassador; and this Refusal was aggravated by their proceeding upon other Business, nay upon the Consideration of this very Subject to internal Purposes; and while they found it impossible to approve the Conduct of their Subjects, they still industriously avoided to give Us the Satisfaction so manifestly due.
We had every Right to expect, that such a Discovery would have roused them to a just Indignation at the Insult offered to Us, and to themselves; and that they would have been eager to give Us full and ample Satisfaction for the Offence, and to inflict the severest Punishment upon the Offenders. The Urgency of the Business made an instant Answer essential to the Honour and Safety of this Country.[1] The Demand was accordingly pressed by Our Ambassador in repeated Conferences with the Ministers, and in a Second Memorial: It was pressed with all the Earnestness which could proceed from Our ancient Friendship, and the Sense of recent Injuries; and the Answer now given to a Memorial on such a Subject, delivered about Five Weeks ago, is, _That the States have taken it ad referendum_. Such an Answer, upon such an Occasion, could only be dictated by the fixt Purpose of Hostility meditated, and already resolved, by the States, induced by the offensive Councils of Amsterdam thus to countenance the hostile Aggression, which the Magistrates of that City have made in the Name of the Republic.
There is an End of the Faith of all Treaties with Them, if Amsterdam may usurp the Sovereign Power, may violate those Treaties with Impunity, by pledging the States to Engagements directly contrary, and leaguing the Republic with the Rebels of a Sovereign to whom she is bound by the closest Ties. An Infraction of the Law of Nations, by the meanest Member of any Country, gives the injured State a Right to demand Satisfaction and Punishment: How much more so, when the Injury complained of is a flagrant Violation of Public Faith, committed by leading and predominant Members in the State? Since then the Satisfaction we have demanded is not given, We must, though most reluctantly, do Ourselves that Justice which We cannot otherwise obtain: We must consider the States General as Parties in the Injury which they will not repair, as Sharers in the Aggression which they refuse to punish, and must act accordingly. We have therefore ordered Our Ambassador to withdraw from the Hague, and shall immediately pursue such vigorous Measures as the Occasion fully justifies, and Our Dignity and the essential Interests of Our People require.