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These considerations might well have made William un-easy, even if all the military means of the United Provinceshad been at his absolute disposal. But in truth it seemedvery doubtful whether he would be able to obtain the as-sistance of a single battalion. Of all the difficulties with whichhe had to struggle, the greatest, though little noticed by Eng-lish historians, arose from the constitution of the Batavianrepublic. No great society has ever existed during a longcourse of years under a polity so inconvenient. The StatesGeneral could not make war or peace, could not conclude anyalliance or levy any tax, without the consent of the States ofevery province. The States of a province could not give suchconsent without the consent of every municipality which hada share in the representation. Every municipality was, insome sense, a sovereign state, and, as such, claimed theright of communicating directly with foreign ambassadors,and of concerting with them the means of defeating schemeson which other municipalities were intent. In some towncouncils the party which had, during several generations,regarded the influence of the Stadtholders with jealousy hadgreat power. At the head of this party were the magistratesof the noble city of Amsterdam, which was then at the heightof prosperity. They had, ever since the peace of Nimeguen,kept up a friendly correspondence with Lewis through the in-strumentality of his able and active envoy the Count of Avaux.Propositions brought forward by the Stadtholder as indis-pensable to the security of the commonwealth, sanctioned byall the provinces except Holland, and sanctioned by seven-teen of the eighteen town councils of Holland, had repeatedlybeen negatived by the single voice of Amsterdam. The onlyconstitutional remedy in such cases was that deputies fromthe cities which were agreed should pay a visit to the citywhich dissented, for the purpose of expostulation. Thenumber of deputies was unlimited: they might continue toexpostulate as long as they thought fit; and meanwhile alltheir expenses were defrayed by the obstinate communitywhich refused to yield to their arguments. This absurd modeof coercion had once been tried with success on the littleMacaulay, History. III. 15

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