By this agreement they combined in proposing to restore the Estates of the German Empire, which had been overpowered by the house of Austria, and especially the Palatine house, to those possessions and rights which they had enjoyed before the war. The King of England pledged himself that he would not permit either money or the necessaries of war to be supplied in future to the Austro-Spanish house, but on the contrary, that he would equip a fleet which should entirely prevent any transport of the kind: that he would never again allow the Spaniards to enlist soldiers in his dominions, but that he would give this permission to the French. In return the King of France promised not to conclude peace either with the German or with the Spanish line of the house of Austria without the consent of the [A.D. 1637.] King of England, and above all not to do so unless the complete restoration of the Palatinate had been obtained. In order to achieve this end, their allies, Holland and Sweden, were to be invited, in common with the two Kings, to lay before the house of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria conditions for a general agreement, and were to enforce these by arms if they were not accepted within a month. The two Kings were then to sanction any kind of enterprise on the part of their subjects against the possessions of the crown of Spain in America, in the East Indies, or in Europe: they were to cut off the communications of Spain with the distant parts of the world, as well as with Flanders and Germany; and they were to settle beforehand how to deal with the conquests which they hoped to make in the Spanish Netherlands. On the last point negotiations had not yet led to any agreement. Charles I had demanded that if Dunkirk, or other places in the Netherlands, were conquered, they should then be handed over as a pledge to his nephews, the Princes Palatine. The French, on the contrary, adhered to their intention of erecting in the conquered Netherlands either a Catholic republic, or a government under the common sovereignty of the allies, like the bailiwicks in Switzerland. In the further progress of the negotiations Charles I expressed himself at last not disinclined to assent to a government in the form of a common sovereignty. All points in the agreement were to be again deliberated on in a congress of the powers at Hamburg, and to be there brought to a settlement. Thus matters were settled after long negotiation. When we read the articles it is hard not to believe that a powerful joint effort for restoring the former condition of affairs was to be made without delay. A closer consideration of the circumstances however shows beforehand that on neither side was there a decided intention of making such an effort.