Upon the eighteenth of January the House of Lords sent down a bill to the Commons, for fixing the precedence of the Hanover family, which probably had been forgot in the Acts for settling the succession of the crown. That of Henry VIII. which gives the rank to princes of the blood, carries it no farther than to nephews, nieces, and grandchildren of the crown, by virtue of which the Princess Sophia is a princess of the blood, as niece to King Charles I of England, and precedes accordingly, but this privilege doth not descend to her son the Elector, or the electoral prince. To supply which defect, and pay a compliment to the presumptive heirs of the crown, this bill, as appeareth by the preamble, was recommended by Her Majesty to the House of Lords, which the Commons, to shew their zeal for every thing that might be thought to concern the interest or honour of that illustrious family, ordered to be read thrice, passed _nemine contradicente_ and returned to the Lords, without any amendment, on the very day it was sent down. But the House seemed to have nothing more at heart than a strict inquiry into the state of the nation, with respect to foreign alliances. Some discourses had been published in print, about the beginning of the session, boldly complaining of certain articles in the Barrier Treaty, concluded about three years since by the Lord Viscount Townshend, between Great Britain and the States General, and shewing, in many particulars, the unequal conduct of these powers in our alliance, in furnishing their quotas and supplies. It was asserted by the same writers, "That these hardships, put upon England, had been countenanced and encouraged by a party here at home, in order to preserve their power, which could be no otherwise maintained than by continuing the war, as well as by Her Majesty's general abroad, upon account of his own peculiar interest and grandeur." These loud accusations spreading themselves throughout the kingdom, delivered in facts directly charged, and thought, whether true or not, to be but weakly confuted, had sufficiently prepared the minds of the people, and, by putting arguments into every body's mouth, had filled the town and country with controversies, both in writing and discourse. The point appeared to be of great consequence, whether the war continued or not for, in the former case, it was necessary that the allies should be brought to a more equal regulation, and that the States in particular, for whom Her Majesty had done such great things, should explain and correct those articles in the Barrier Treaty which were prejudicial to Britain, and, in either case, it was fit the people should have at least the satisfaction of knowing by whose counsels, and for what designs, they had been so hardly treated.