that her purse is to be open to her allies, and that she is to find the funds. 'The Dutch we know are good allies, So are they all with subsidies.'[149] They were, moreover, not indisposed to negotiate with the French. These, meanwhile, under the leadership of Marshal Saxe, were occupying the Low Countries almost without interruption or resistance. In February they entered Brussels; in May, Antwerp. Mons, Charleroi, and Namur successively fell into their hands, and they ended the campaign by defeating the allies at Roucoux, and remaining practically in possession of the Austrian Netherlands. But there was a glimpse of peace, in that some negotiations, abortive though they were destined to be, were opened at Breda. In 1747 the Duke of Cumberland again assumed the command with the usual disastrous result. The Dutch contingent, also as usual, was very inadequate: commercial nations are perhaps apt to treat international engagements in too commercial a spirit. But the irruption into Dutch Flanders of twenty thousand Frenchmen roused a spirit of a different kind. The Dutch rose like one man, overturned their rulers, and once more entrusted the Stadtholderate to the House of Orange. This was a national gain. But the luckless Cumberland again sustained a bloody defeat at Lauffeld. The battle, however, had one indirect but happy consequence. Our best General, Ligonier, was captured, and, being of French birth, was favourably received by Louis XV., who threw out hints of peace and placed him in communication with Marshal Saxe. The Marshal admitted that the war, and he himself as concerned in it, were profoundly unpopular in France, that peace might be obtained on easy terms, and suggested that Cumberland and he should be the negotiators. Pelham was naturally eager for a pacification, George II. less so, and what the King wished Newcastle was anxious to wish. But a congress to adjust a treaty met at Aix-la-Chapelle in March 1748, and in April the preliminaries of a treaty were signed by the British and French and Dutch plenipotentiaries. [Sidenote: 1748.]