The King now had what he wanted from England. The peculiarity of
the Batavian polity threw some difficulties in his way; but every
difficulty gelded to his authority and to the dexterous
management of Heinsius. And in truth the treaty could not but be
favourably regarded by the States General; for it had been
carefully framed with the especial object of preventing France
from obtaining any accession of territory, or influence on the
side of the Netherlands; and Dutchmen, who remembered the
terrible year when the camp of Lewis had been pitched between
Utrecht and Amsterdam, were delighted to find that he was not to
add to his dominions a single fortress in their neighbourhood,
and were quite willing to buy him off with whole provinces under
the Pyrenees and the Apennines. The sanction both of the federal
and of the provincial governments was given with ease and
expedition; and in the evening of the fourth of September 1698,
the treaty was signed. As to the blanks in the English powers,
William had attended to his Chancellor's suggestion, and had
inserted the names of Sir Joseph Williamson, minister at the
Hague, a born Englishman, and of Portland, a naturalised
Englishman. The Grand Pensionary and seven other Commissioners
signed on behalf of the United Provinces. Tallard alone signed
for France. He seems to have been extravagantly elated by what
seemed to be the happy issue of the negotiation in which he had
borne so great a part, and in his next despatch to Lewis boasted
of the new treaty as destined to be the most famous that had been
made during many centuries.

William too was well pleased; and he had reason to be so. Had the
King of Spain died, as all men expected, before the end of that
year, it is highly probable that France would have kept faith