'In Holland, she met with the greatest civilities from the Stadtholder and his family, lived upon terms of intimacy with them, and was received into the friendship of the Princess of Orange, who, at that time, was the object of negotiation with the Royal Family of England, for the Heir apparent. Frequent inquiries were made about the Prince and the English Court, in confidential communications between her and the Princess, it being wholly unknown to the Princess that she was her most dangerous rival. She said she was often placed in circumstances of considerable embarrassment; but, her object being to break through her own engagements, she was not the hypocrite she might have appeared afterwards, as she would have been very happy to have furthered this alliance. She afterwards saw this Princess in England, and continued to enjoy her friendship, but there was always a great coolness on the part of the Stadtholder towards her. 'She left Holland in the Royal Barge, and spent above another year abroad, endeavouring to "fight off" (to use her own phrase) a union fraught with such dangerous consequences to her peace and happiness. Couriers after couriers passed through France, carrying the letters and propositions of the Prince to her in France and Switzerland. The Duke of Orleans was the medium of this correspondence. The speed of the couriers exciting the suspicion of the French Government, three of them were, at different times, put into prison. Wrought upon, and fearful, from the past, of the desperation of the Prince, she consented, formally and deliberately, to promise that she would never marry any other person; and, lastly, she was induced to return to England, and agree to become his wife, on those conditions which satisfied her own conscience, though she could have no legal claim to be the wife of the Prince.