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+The Project Gutenberg EBook History of The United Netherlands, 1605-07
+#78 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
+
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+Title: History of the United Netherlands, 1605-07
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+Author: John Lothrop Motley
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4878]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 15, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY UNITED NETHERLANDS, 1605-07 ***
+
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger
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+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
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+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 78
+
+History of the United Netherlands, 1605-1607
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+     Preparations for the campaign of 1606--Diminution of Maurice's
+     popularity--Quarrel between the pope and the Venetian republic--
+     Surprise of Sluys by Du Terrail--Dilatoriness of the republic's
+     operations--Movements of Spinola--Influence of the weather on the
+     military transactions of the year--Endeavours of Spinola to obtain
+     possession of the Waal and Yssel--Surrender of Lochem to Spinola--
+     Siege of Groll--Siege and loss of Rheinberg--Mutiny in the Catholic
+     army--Recovery of Lochem by Maurice--Attempted recovery of Groll--
+     Sudden appearance of the enemy--Withdrawal of the besieging army
+     Close of the campaign--End of the war of independence--Motives of
+     the Prince in his actions before Groll--Cruise of Admiral Haultain
+     to the coast of Spain and Portugal--His encounter with the war--
+     ships of Fazardo--Courageous conduct of the vice-admiral--Deaths of
+     Justus Lipsius, Hohenlo, and Count John of Nassau.
+
+After the close of the campaign of 1605 Spinola had gone once more to
+Spain.  On his passage through Paris he had again been received with
+distinguished favour by that warm ally of the Dutch republic, Henry IV.,
+and on being questioned by that monarch as to his plans for the next
+campaign had replied that he intended once more to cross the Rhine, and
+invade Friesland.  Henry, convinced that the Genoese would of course not
+tell him the truth on such an occasion, wrote accordingly to the States-
+General that they might feel safe as to their eastern frontier.  Whatever
+else might happen, Friesland and the regions adjacent would be safe next
+year from attack.  The immediate future was to show whether the subtle
+Italian had not compassed as neat a deception by telling the truth as
+coarser politicians could do by falsehood.
+
+Spinola found the royal finances in most dismal condition.  Three hundred
+thousand dollars a month were the least estimate of the necessary
+expenses for carrying on the Netherland war, a sum which could not
+possibly be spared by Lerma, Uceda, the Marquis of the Seven Churches,
+and other financiers then industriously occupied in draining dry the
+exchequer for their own uses.  Once more the general aided his sovereign
+with purse and credit, as well as with his sword.  Once more the exchange
+at Genoa was glutted with the acceptances of Marquis Spinola.  Here at
+least was a man of a nature not quite so depraved as that of the
+parasites bred out of the corruption of a noble but dying commonwealth,
+and doubtless it was with gentle contempt that the great favourite and
+his friends looked at the military and financial enthusiasm of the
+volunteer.  It was so much more sagacious to make a princely fortune than
+to sacrifice one already inherited, in the service of one's country.
+
+Spinola being thus ready not only to fight but to help to pay for the
+fighting, found his plans of campaigns received with great benignity by
+the king and his ministers.  Meantime there was much delay.  The enormous
+labours thus devolved upon one pair of shoulders by the do-nothing king
+and a mayor of the palace whose soul was absorbed by his own private
+robberies, were almost too much for human strength.  On his return to the
+Netherlands Spinola fell dangerously ill in Genoa.
+
+Meantime, during his absence and the enforced idleness of the Catholic
+armies, there was an opportunity for the republicans to act with
+promptness and vigour.  They displayed neither quality.  Never had there
+been so much sluggishness as in the preparations for the campaign of
+1606.  The States' exchequer was lower than it had been for years.  The
+republic was without friends.  Left to fight their battle for national
+existence alone, the Hollanders found themselves perpetually subjected to
+hostile censure from their late allies, and to friendly advice still more
+intolerable.  There were many brave Englishmen and Frenchmen sharing in
+the fatigues of the Dutch war of independence, but the governments of
+Henry and of James were as protective, as severely virtuous, as
+offensive, and, in their secret intrigues with the other belligerent, as
+mischievous as it was possible for the best-intentioned neutrals to be.
+
+The fame and the popularity of the stadholder had been diminished by the
+results of the past campaign.  The States-General were disappointed,
+dissatisfied, and inclined to censure very unreasonably the public
+servant who had always obeyed their decrees with docility.  While Henry
+IV. was rapidly transferring his admiration from Maurice to Spinola, the
+disagreements at home between the Advocate and the Stadholder were
+becoming portentous.
+
+There was a want of means and of soldiers for the new campaign.  Certain
+causes were operating in Europe to the disadvantage of both belligerents.
+In the south, Venice had almost drawn her sword against the pope in her
+settled resolution to put down the Jesuits and to clip the wings of the
+church party, before, with bequests and donations, votive churches and
+magnificent monasteries, four-fifths of the domains of the republic
+should fall into mortmain, as was already the case in Brabant.
+
+Naturally there was a contest between the ex-Huguenot, now eldest son of
+the Church, and the most Catholic king, as to who should soonest defend
+the pope.  Henry offered thorough protection to his Holiness, but only
+under condition that he should have a monopoly of that protection.
+He lifted his sword, but meantime it was doubtful whether the blow was to
+descend upon Venice or upon Spain.  The Spanish levies, on their way to
+the Netherlands, were detained in Italy by this new exigency.  The
+States-General offered the sister republic their maritime assistance, and
+notwithstanding their own immense difficulties, stood ready  to send a
+fleet to the Mediterranean.  The offer was gratefully declined, and the
+quarrel with the pope arranged, but the incident laid the foundation of
+a lasting friendship between the only two important republics then
+existing.  The issue of the Gunpowder Plot, at the close of the preceding
+year, had confirmed James in his distaste for Jesuits, and had effected
+that which all the eloquence of the States-General and their ambassador
+had failed to accomplish, the prohibition of Spanish enlistments in his
+kingdom.  Guido Fawkes had served under the archduke in Flanders.
+
+Here then were delays additional to that caused by Spinola's illness.
+On the other hand, the levies of the republic were for a season paralysed
+by the altercation, soon afterwards adjusted, between Henry IV. and the
+Duke of Bouillon, brother-in-law of the stadholder and of the Palatine,
+and by the petty war between the Duke and Hanseatic city of Brunswick,
+in which Ernest of Nassau was for a time employed.
+
+During this period of almost suspended animation the war gave no signs of
+life, except in a few spasmodic efforts on the part of the irrepressible
+Du Terrail.  Early in the spring, not satisfied with his double and
+disastrous repulse before Bergen-op-Zoom, that partisan now determined to
+surprise Sluy's.  That an attack was impending became known to the
+governor of that city, the experienced Colonel Van der Noot.  Not
+dreaming, however, that any mortal--even the most audacious of Frenchmen
+and adventurers--would ever think of carrying a city like Sluy's by
+surprise, defended as it was by a splendid citadel and by a whole chain
+of forts and water-batteries, and capable of withstanding three months
+long, as it had so recently done, a siege in form by the acknowledged
+master of the beleaguering science, the methodical governor event calmly
+to bed one fine night in June.  His slumbers were disturbed before
+morning by the sound of trumpets sounding Spanish melodies in the
+streets, and by a, great uproar and shouting.  Springing out of bed, he
+rushed half-dressed to the rescue.  Less vigilant than Paul Bax had been
+the year before in Bergen, he found that Du Terrail had really effected a
+surprise.  At the head of twelve hundred Walloons and Irishmen, that
+enterprising officer had waded through the drowned land of Cadzand, with
+the promised support of a body of infantry under Frederic Van den Berg,
+from Damm, had stolen noiselessly by the forts of that island
+unchallenged and unseen, had effected with petards a small breach through
+the western gate of the city, and with a large number of his followers,
+creeping two and two through the gap, had found himself for a time master
+of Sluys.
+
+The profound silence of the place had however somewhat discouraged the
+intruders.  The whole population were as sound asleep as was the
+excellent commandant, but the stillness in the deserted streets suggested
+an ambush, and they moved stealthily forward, feeling their way with
+caution towards the centre of the town.
+
+It so happened, moreover, that the sacristan had forgotten to wind up the
+great town clock.  The agreement with the party first entering and making
+their way to the opposite end of the city, had been that at the striking
+of a certain hour after midnight they should attack simultaneously and
+with a great outcry all the guardhouses, so that the garrison might be
+simultaneously butchered.  The clock never struck, the signal was never
+given, and Du Terrail and his immediate comrades remained near the
+western gate, suspicious and much perplexed.  The delay was fatal.  The
+guard, the whole garrison, and the townspeople flew to arms, and half-
+naked, but equipped with pike and musket, and led on by Van der Noot in
+person, fell upon the intruders.  A panic took the place of previous
+audacity in the breasts of Du Terrail's followers.  Thinking only of
+escape, they found the gap by which they had crept into the town much
+less convenient as a means of egress in the face of an infuriated
+multitude.  Five hundred of them were put to death in a very few minutes.
+Almost as many were drowned or suffocated in the marshes, as they
+attempted to return by the road over which they had come.  A few
+stragglers June, of the fifteen hundred were all that were left to tell
+the tale.
+
+It would seem scarcely worth while to chronicle such trivial incidents in
+this great war--the all-absorbing drama of Christendom--were it not that
+they were for the moment the whole war.  It might be thought that
+hostilities were approaching their natural termination, and that the war
+was dying of extreme old age, when the Quixotic pranks of a Du Terrail
+occupied so large a part of European attention.
+
+The winter had passed, another spring had come and gone, and Maurice had
+in vain attempted to obtain sufficient means from the States to take the
+field in force.  Henry, looking on from the outside, was becoming more
+and more exasperated with the dilatoriness which prevented the republic
+from profiting by the golden moments of Spinola's enforced absence.  Yet
+the best that could be done seemed to be to take measures for defensive
+operations.
+
+Spinola never reached Brussels until the beginning of June, yet, during
+all the good campaigning weather which had been fleeting away, not a blow
+had been struck, nor a wholesome counsel taken by the stadholder or the
+States.  It was midsummer before the armies were in the field.  The plans
+of the Catholic general however then rapidly developed themselves.
+Having assembled as large a force as had ever been under his command, he
+now divided it into two nearly equal portions.  Bucquoy, with ten
+thousand foot, twelve hundred cavalry, and twelve guns, arrived on the
+18th July at Nook, on the Meuse.  Spinola, with eleven thousand infantry,
+two thousand horse, and eight guns, crossed the Rhine at the old redoubts
+of Ruhrort, and on the same 18th July took position at Goor, in
+Overyssel.  The first plan of the commander-in-chief was to retrace
+exactly his campaign of the previous year, even as he had with so much
+frankness stated to Henry.  But the republic, although deserted by her
+former friends, and looked upon askance by the monarch of Britain, and
+by the most Christian king, had this year a most efficient ally in the
+weather.  Jupiter Pluvius had descended from on high to the rescue of the
+struggling commonwealth, and his decrees were omnipotent as to the course
+of the campaign.  The seasons that year seemed all fused into one.  It
+was difficult to tell on midsummer day whether it were midwinter, spring,
+or autumn.  The rain came down day after day, week after week, as if the
+contending armies and the very country which was to be invaded and
+defended were to be all washed out of existence together.  Friesland
+resolved itself into a vast quagmire; the roads became fluid, the rivers
+lakes.  Spinola turned his face from the east, and proceeded to carry out
+a second plan which he had long meditated, and even a more effective one,
+in the west.
+
+The Waal and the Yssel formed two sides of a great quadrilateral; and
+furnished for the natural fortress, thus enclosed, two vast and admirable
+moats.  Within lay Good-meadow and Foul-meadow--Bet-uwe and Vel-uwe--one,
+the ancient Batavian island which from time immemorial had given its name
+to the commonwealth, the other, the once dismal swamp which toil and
+intelligence had in the course of centuries transformed into the wealthy
+and flowery land of Gueldres.
+
+Beyond, but in immediate proximity, lay the ancient episcopal city and
+province of Utrecht, over which lay the road to the adjacent Holland and
+Zeeland.  The very heart of the republic would be laid bare to the
+conqueror's sword if he could once force the passage, and obtain the
+control of these two protecting streams.  With Utrecht as his base, and
+all Brabant and Flanders--obedient provinces--at his back, Spinola might
+accomplish more in one season than Alva, Don John, and Alexander Farnese
+had compassed in forty years, and destroy at a blow what was still called
+the Netherland rebellion.  The passage of the rivers once effected, the
+two enveloping wings would fold themselves together, and the conquest
+would be made.
+
+Thus reasoned the brilliant young general, and his projects, although
+far-reaching, did not seem wild.  The first steps were, however, the most
+important as well as the most difficult, and he had to reckon with a wary
+and experienced antagonist.  Maurice had at last collected and reviewed
+at Arnhem an army of nearly fifteen thousand men, and was now watching
+closely from Doesburg and Deventer every movement of the foe.
+
+Having been forced to a defensive campaign, in which he was not likely at
+best to gain many additional laurels, he was the more determined to lay
+down his own life, and sacrifice every man he could bring into the field,
+before Spinola should march into the cherished domains of Utrecht and
+Holland.  Meantime the rain, which had already exerted so much influence
+on the military movements of the year, still maintained the supremacy
+over human plans.  The Yssel and the Waal, always deep, broad, sluggish,
+but dangerous rivers--the Rhine in its old age--were swollen into
+enormous proportions, their currents flowing for the time with the vigour
+of their far away youth.
+
+Maurice had confided the defence of the Waal to Warner Du Bois, under
+whose orders he placed a force of about seven thousand men, and whose
+business it was to prevent Bucquoy's passage.  His own task was to baffle
+Spinola.
+
+Bucquoy's ambition was to cross the Waal at a point as near as possible
+to the fork of that stream with the true Rhine, seize the important city
+of Nymegen, and then give the hand to Spinola, so soon as he should be on
+the other side of the Yssel.  At the village of Spardorp or Kekerdom, he
+employed Pompeio Giustiniani to make a desperate effort, having secured a
+large number of barges in which he embarked his troops.  As the boatmen
+neared the opposite bank, however, they perceived that Warner Du Bois had
+made effective preparations for their reception.  They lost heart, and,
+on pretence that the current of the river was too rapid to allow them to
+reach the point proposed for their landing, gradually dropped down the
+stream, and, in spite of the remonstrances of the commanders, pushed
+their way back to the shore which they had left.  From that time forth,
+the States' troops, in efficient numbers, fringed the inner side of the
+Waal, along the whole length of the Batavian island, while armed vessels
+of the republic patrolled the stream itself.  In vain Count Bucquoy
+watched an opportunity, either by surprise or by main strength, to effect
+a crossing.  The Waal remained as impassable as if it were a dividing
+ocean.
+
+On the other side of the quadrilateral, Maurice's dispositions were as
+effective as those of his lieutenant on the Waal.  The left shore of the
+Yssel, along its whole length, from Arnhem and Doesburg quite up to Zwoll
+and Campen, where the river empties itself into the Zuyder Zee, was now
+sprinkled thickly with forts, hastily thrown up, but strong enough to
+serve the temporary purpose of the stadholder.  In vain the fleet-footed
+and audacious Spinola moved stealthily or fiercely to and fro, from one
+point to another, seeking an opening through which to creep, or a weak
+spot where he might dash himself against the chain.  The whole line was
+securely guarded.  The swollen river, the redoubts, and the musketeers of
+Maurice, protected the heart of the republic from the impending danger.
+
+Wearied of this fruitless pacing up and down, Spinola, while apparently
+intending an assault upon Deventer, and thus attracting his adversary's
+attention to that important city, suddenly swerved to the right, and came
+down upon Lochem.  The little town, with its very slender garrison,
+surrendered at once.  It was not a great conquest, but it might possibly
+be of use in the campaign.  It was taken before the stadholder could move
+a step to its assistance, even had he deemed it prudent to leave Yssel-
+side for an hour.  The summer was passing away, the rain was still
+descending, and it was the 1st of August before Spinola left Lochem.
+He then made a rapid movement to the north, between Zwoll and Hasselt,
+endeavouring to cross the Blackwater, and seize Geelmuyden, on the Zuyder
+Zee.  Had he succeeded, he might have turned Maurice's position.  But the
+works in that direction had been entrusted to an experienced campaigner,
+Warmelo, sheriff of Zalant, who received the impetuous Spinola and his
+lieutenant, Count Solre, so warmly, that they reeled backwards at last,
+after repeated assaults and great loss of men, and never more attempted
+to cross the Yssel.
+
+Obviously, the campaign had failed.  Utrecht and Holland were as far out
+of the Catholic general's reach as the stars in the sky, but at least,
+with his large armies, he could earn a few trophies, barren or
+productive, as it might prove, before winter, uniting with the deluge,
+should drive him from the field.
+
+On the 3rd August, he laid siege to Groll (or Groenlo), a fortified town
+of secondary importance in the country of Zutphen, and, squandering his
+men with much recklessness, in his determination not to be baffled,
+reduced the place in eleven days.  Here he paused for a breathing spell,
+and then, renouncing all his schemes upon the inner defences of the
+republic, withdrew once more to the Rhine and laid siege to Rheinberg.
+
+This frontier place had been tossed to and fro so often between the
+contending parties in the perpetual warfare, that its inhabitants must
+have learned to consider themselves rather as a convenient circulating
+medium for military operations than as burghers who had any part in the
+ordinary business of life.  It had old-fashioned defences of stones
+which, during the recent occupation by the States, had been much
+improved, and had been strengthened with earthworks.
+
+Before it was besieged, Maurice sent his brother Frederic Henry, with
+some picked companies, into the place, so that the garrison amounted to
+three thousand effective men.
+
+The Prince de Soubise, brother of the Duc de Rohan, and other French
+volunteers of quality, also threw themselves into the place, in order to
+take lessons in the latest methods of attack and defence.  It was now
+admitted that no more accomplished pupil of the stadholder in the
+beleaguering art had appeared in Europe than his present formidable
+adversary.  On this occasion, however, there was no great display of
+science.  Maurice obstinately refused to move to the relief of the place,
+despite all the efforts of a deputation of the States-General who visited
+his camp in September, urging him strenuously to take the chances of a
+stricken field.
+
+Nothing could induce the stadholder, who held an observing position at
+Wesel, with his back against the precious watery quadrilateral, to risk
+the defence of those most vital lines of the Yssel and the Waal.  While
+attempting to save Rheinberg, he felt it possible that he might lose
+Nymegen, or even Utrecht.  The swift but wily Genoese was not to be
+trifled with or lost sight of an instant.  The road to Holland might
+still be opened, and the destiny of the republic might hang on the
+consequences of a single false move.  That destiny, under God, was in his
+hands alone, and no chance of winning laurels, even from his greatest
+rival's head, could induce him to shrink from the path of duty, however
+obscure it might seem.  There were a few brilliant assaults and sorties,
+as in all sieges, the French volunteers especially distinguishing
+themselves; but the place fell at the end of forty days.  The garrison
+marched out with the honours of war.  In the modern practice, armies were
+rarely captured in strongholds, nor were the defenders, together with the
+population, butchered.
+
+The loss, after a six weeks' siege, of Rheinberg, which six years before,
+with far inferior fortifications, had held out a much longer time against
+the States, was felt as a bitter disappointment throughout the republic.
+Frederic Henry, on leaving the place, made a feeble and unsuccessful
+demonstration against Yenlo, by which the general dissatisfaction was
+not diminished.  Soon afterwards, the war became more languid than ever.
+News arrived of a great crisis on the Genoa exchange.  A multitude of
+merchants, involved in pecuniary transactions with Spinola, fell with
+one tremendous crash.  The funds of the Catholic commander-in-chief were
+already exhausted, his acceptances could no longer be negotiated.
+
+His credit was becoming almost as bad as the king's own.  The inevitable
+consequence of the want of cash and credit followed.  Mutiny, for the
+first time in Spinola's administration, raised its head once more, and
+stalked about defiant.  Six hundred veterans marched to Breda, and
+offered their services to Justinus of Nassau.  The proposal was accepted.
+Other bands, established their quarters in different places, chose their
+Elettos and lesser officers, and enacted the scenes which have been so
+often depicted in these pages.  The splendid army of Spinola melted like
+April snow.  By the last week of October there hardly seemed a Catholic
+army in the field.  The commander-in-chief had scattered such companies
+as could still be relied upon in the villages of the friendly arch-
+episcopate of Cologne, and had obtained, not by murders and blackmail--
+according to the recent practice of the Admiral of Arragon, at whose grim
+name the whole country-side still shuddered--but from the friendship of
+the leading inhabitants and by honest loans, a sufficient sum to put
+bread into the mouths of the troops still remaining faithful to him.
+
+The opportunity had at last arrived for the stadholder to strike a blow
+before the season closed.  Bankruptcy and mutiny had reduced his enemy to
+impotence in the very season of his greatest probable success.  On the
+24th October Maurice came before Lochem, which he recaptured in five
+days.  Next in the order of Spinola's victories was Groll, which the
+stadholder at once besieged.  He had almost fifteen thousand infantry and
+three thousand horse.  A career of brief triumph before winter should
+close in upon those damping fields, seemed now assured.  But the rain,
+which during nearly the whole campaign had been his potent ally, had of
+late been playing him false.  The swollen Yssel, during a brief period of
+dry weather, had sunk so low in certain shallows as not to be navigable
+for his transports, and after his trains of artillery and munitions had
+been dragged wearily overland as far as Groll, the deluge had returned in
+such force, that physical necessity as well as considerations of humanity
+compelled him to defer his entrenching operations until the weather
+should moderate.  As there seemed no further danger to be apprehended
+from the broken, mutinous, and dispersed forces of the enemy, the siege
+operations were conducted in a leisurely manner.  What was the
+astonishment, therefore, among the soldiers, when a rumour flew about the
+camp in the early days of November that the indomitable Spinola was again
+advancing upon them!  It was perfectly true.  With extraordinary
+perseverance he had gathered up six or seven thousand infantry and twelve
+companies of horse--all the remnants of the splendid armies with which he
+had taken the field at midsummer--and was now marching to the relief of
+Groll, besieged as it was by a force at least doubly as numerous as his
+own.  It was represented to the stadholder, however, that an impassable
+morass lay between him and the enemy, and that there would therefore be
+time enough to complete his entrenchments before Spinola could put his
+foolhardy attempt into execution.  But the Catholic general, marching
+faster than rumour itself, had crossed the impracticable swamp almost
+before a spadeful of earth had been turned in the republican camp.  His
+advance was in sight even while the incredulous were sneering at the
+absurdity of his supposed project.  Informed by scouts of the weakest
+point in the stadholder's extended lines, Spinola was directing himself
+thither with beautiful precision.  Maurice hastily contracted both his
+wings, and concentrated himself in the village of Lebel.  At last the
+moment had come for a decisive struggle.  There could be little doubt of
+the result.  All the advantage was with the republican army.  The
+Catholics had arrived in front of the enemy fatigued by forced marches
+through quagmires, in horrible weather, over roads deemed impassable.
+The States' troops were fresh, posted on ground of their own choosing,
+and partially entrenched.  To the astonishment, even to the horror of the
+most eager portion of the army, the stadholder deliberately, and despite
+the groans of his soldiers, refused the combat, and gave immediate orders
+for raising the siege and abandoning the field.
+
+On the 12th of November he broke up his camp and withdrew to a village
+called Zelem.  On the same day the marquis, having relieved the city,
+without paying the expected price, retired in another direction, and
+established what was left of his army in the province of Munster.  The
+campaign was closed.   And thus the great war which had run its stormy
+course for nearly forty years, dribbled out of existence, sinking away
+that rainy November in the dismal fens of Zutphen.  The long struggle for
+independence had come, almost unperceived, to an end.
+
+Peace had not arrived, but the work of the armies was over for many a
+long year.  Freedom and independence were secured.  A deed or two, never
+to be forgotten by Netherland hearts, was yet to be done on the ocean,
+before the long and intricate negotiations for peace should begin, and
+the weary people permit themselves to rejoice; but the prize was already
+won.
+
+Meantime, the conduct of Prince Maurice in these last days of the
+campaign was the subject of biting censure by friend and foe.  The
+military fame of Spinola throughout Europe grew apace; and the fame of
+his great rival seemed to shrink in the same proportion.
+
+Henry of France was especially indignant at what he considered the
+shortcomings of the republic and of its chief.  Already, before the close
+of the summer, the agent Aerssens had written from Paris that his Majesty
+was very much displeased with Spinola's prosperity, ascribing it to the
+want of good councils on the part of the States' Government that so fine
+an army should lie idle so long, without making an attempt to relieve the
+beleaguered places, so that Spinola felt assured of taking anything as
+soon as he made his appearance.  "Your Mightinesses cannot believe,"
+continued the agent, "what a trophy is made by the Spanish ministers out
+of these little exploits, and they have so much address at this court,
+that if such things continue they may produce still greater results."
+
+In December he wrote that the king was so malcontent concerning the siege
+of Groll as to make it impossible to answer him with arguments, that he
+openly expressed regret at not having employed the money lent to the
+States upon strengthening his own frontiers, so distrustful was he of
+their capacity for managing affairs, and that he mentioned with disgust
+statements received from his ambassador at Brussels and from the Duc de
+Rohan, to the effect that Spinola had between five and six thousand men
+only at the relief of Groll, against twelve thousand in the stadholder's
+army.
+
+The motives of the deeds and the omissions of the prince at this supreme
+moment must be pondered with great caution.  The States-General had
+doubtless been inclined for vigorous movements, and Olden-Barneveld, with
+some of his colleagues, had visited the camp late in September to urge
+the relief of Rheinberg.  Maurice was in daily correspondence with the
+Government, and regularly demanded their advice, by which, on many former
+occasions, he had bound himself, even when it was in conflict with his
+own better judgment.
+
+But throughout this campaign, the responsibility was entirely, almost
+ostentatiously, thrown by the States-General upon their commander-in-
+chief, and, as already indicated, their preparations in the spring and
+early summer had been entirely inadequate.  Should he lose the army with
+which he had so quietly but completely checked Spinola in all his really
+important moves during the summer and autumn, he might despair of putting
+another very soon into the field.  That his force in that November week
+before Groll was numerically far superior to the enemy is certain, but he
+had lost confidence in his cavalry since their bad behaviour at Mulheim
+the previous year, and a very large proportion of his infantry was on the
+sick-list at the moment of Spinola's approach.  "Lest the continual bad
+weather should entirely consume the army," he said, "we are resolved,
+within a day or two after we have removed the sick who are here in great
+numbers, to break up, unless the enemy should give us occasion to make
+some attempt upon him."
+
+Maurice was the servant of a small republic, contending single-handed
+against an empire still considered the most formidable power in the
+world.  His cue was not necessarily to fight on all occasions; for delay
+often fights better than an army against a foreign invader.  When a
+battle and a victory were absolutely necessary we have seen the
+magnificent calmness which at Nieuport secured triumph under the shadow
+of death.  Had he accepted Spinola's challenge in November, he would
+probably have defeated him and have taken Groll.  He might not, however,
+have annihilated his adversary, who, even when worsted, would perhaps
+have effected his escape.  The city was of small value to the republic.
+The principal advantage of a victory would have been increased military
+renown for himself.  Viewed in this light, there is something almost
+sublime in the phlegmatic and perfectly republican composure with which
+he disdained laurels, easily enough, as it would stem, to have been
+acquired, and denied his soldiers the bloodshed and the suffering for
+which they were clamouring.
+
+And yet, after thoroughly weighing and measuring all these circumstances,
+it is natural to regret that he did not on that occasion rise upon
+Spinola and smite him to the earth.  The Lord had delivered him into
+his hands.  The chances of his own defeat were small, its probable
+consequences, should it occur, insignificant.  It is hardly conceivable
+that he could have been so completely overthrown as to allow the Catholic
+commander to do in November what he had tried all summer in vain to
+accomplish, cross the Yssel and the Waal, with the dregs of his army, and
+invade Holland and Zeeland in midwinter, over the prostrate bodies of
+Maurice and all his forces.  On the other hand, that the stadholder would
+have sent the enemy reeling back to his bogs, with hardly the semblance
+of an army at his heels, was almost certain: The effect of such a blow
+upon impending negotiations, and especially upon the impressible
+imagination of Henry and the pedantic shrewdness of James, would have
+been very valuable.  It was not surprising that the successful soldier
+who sat on the French throne, and who had been ever ready to wager life
+and crown on the results of a stricken field, should be loud in his
+expressions of disapprobation and disgust.  Yet no man knew better than
+the sagacious Gascon that fighting to win a crown, and to save a
+republic, were two essentially different things.
+
+In the early summer of this year Admiral Haultain, whom we lately saw
+occupied with tossing Sarmiento's Spanish legion into the sea off the
+harbour of Dover, had been despatched to the Spanish coast on a still
+more important errand.  The outward bound Portuguese merchantmen and the
+home returning fleets from America, which had been absent nearly two
+years, might be fallen in with at any moment, in the latitude of 36-38
+deg.  The admiral, having received orders, therefore, to cruise carefully
+in those regions, sailed for the shores of Portugal with a squadron of
+twenty-four war-ships.  His expedition was not very successful.  He
+picked up a prize or two here and there, and his presence on the coast
+prevented the merchant-fleet from sailing out of Lisbon for the East
+Indies, the merchandise already on board being disembarked and the voyage
+postponed to a more favourable opportunity.
+
+He saw nothing, however, of the long-expected ships from the golden West
+Indies--as Mexico, Peru, and Brazil were then indiscriminately called--
+and after parting company with six of his own ships, which were dispersed
+and damaged in a gale, and himself suffering from a dearth of provisions,
+he was forced to return without much gain or glory.
+
+In the month of September he was once more despatched on the same
+service.  He had nineteen war-galleots of the first class, and two
+yachts, well equipped and manned.  Vice-admiral of the fleet was Regnier
+Klaaszoon (or Nicholson), of Amsterdam, a name which should always be
+held fresh in remembrance, not only by mariners and Netherlanders, but
+by all men whose pulses can beat in sympathy with practical heroism.
+
+The admiral coasted deliberately along the shores of Spain and Portugal.
+It seemed impossible that the golden fleets, which, as it was
+ascertained, had not yet arrived, could now escape the vigilance of the
+Dutch cruisers.  An occasional merchant-ship or small war-galley was met
+from time to time and chased into the harbours.  A landing was here and
+there effected and a few villages burned.  But these were not the prizes
+nor the trophies sought.  On the 19th September a storm off the
+Portuguese coast scattered the fleet; six of the best and largest ships
+being permanently lost sight of and separated from the rest.  With the
+other thirteen Haultain now cruised off Cape St. Vincent directly across
+the ordinary path of the homeward-bound treasure ships.
+
+On the 6th October many sails were descried in the distance, and the
+longing eyes of the Hollanders were at last gratified with what was
+supposed to be the great West India commercial squadrons.  The delusion
+was brief.  Instead of innocent and richly Freighted merchantmen, the new
+comers soon proved to be the war-ships of Admiral Dan Luis de Fazardo,
+eighteen great galleons and eight galleys strong, besides lesser vessels
+--the most formidable fleet that for years had floated in those waters.
+There had been time for Admiral Haultain to hold but a very brief
+consultation with his chief officers.  As it was manifest that the
+Hollanders were enormously over-matched, it was decided to manoeuvre as
+well as possible for the weather-gage, and then to fight or to effect an
+escape, as might seem most expedient after fairly testing the strength of
+the enemy.  It was blowing a fresh gale, and the Netherland fleet had as
+much as they could stagger with under close-reefed topsails.  The war-
+galleys, fit only for fair weather, were soon forced to take refuge under
+the lee of the land, but the eighteen galleons, the most powerful vessels
+then known to naval architecture, were bearing directly down, full before
+the wind, upon the Dutch fleet.
+
+It must be admitted that Admiral Haultain hardly displayed as much energy
+now as he had done in the Straits of Dover against the unarmed transports
+the year before.  His ships were soon scattered, right and left, and the
+manoeuvres for the weather-gage resolved themselves into a general
+scramble for escape.  Vice-Admiral Klaaszoon alone held firm, and met the
+onset of the first comers of the Spanish fleet.  A fierce combat, yard-
+arm to yard-arm, ensued.  Klaaszoon's mainmast went by the board, but
+Haultain, with five ships, all that could be rallied, coming to the
+rescue, the assailants for a moment withdrew.  Five Dutch vessels of
+moderate strength were now in action against the eighteen great galleons
+of Fazardo.  Certainly it was not an even game, but it might have been
+played with more heart and better skill.  There was but a half-hour of
+daylight left when Klaaszoon's crippled ship was again attacked.  This
+time there was no attempt to offer him assistance; the rest of the Dutch
+fleet crowding all the sails their masts would bear, and using all the
+devices of their superior seamanship, not to harass the enemy, but to
+steal as swiftly as possible out of his way.  Honestly confessing that
+they dared not come into the fight, they bore away for dear life in every
+direction.  Night came on, and the last that the fugitives knew of the
+events off Cape St. Vincent was that stout Regnier Klaaszoon had been
+seen at sunset in the midst of the Spanish fleet; the sound of his
+broadsides saluting their ears as they escaped.
+
+Left to himself, alone in a dismasted ship, the vice-admiral never
+thought of yielding to the eighteen Spanish galleons.  To the repeated
+summons of Don Luis Fazardo that he should surrender he remained
+obstinately deaf.  Knowing that it was impossible for him to escape, and
+fearing that he might blow up his vessel rather than surrender, the enemy
+made no attempt to board.  Spanish chivalry was hardly more conspicuous
+on this occasion than Dutch valour, as illustrated by Admiral Haultain.
+Two whole days and nights Klaaszoon drifted about in his crippled ship,
+exchanging broadsides with his antagonists, and with his colours flying
+on the stump of his mast.  The fact would seem incredible, were it not
+attested by perfectly trustworthy contemporary accounts.  At last his
+hour seemed to have come.  His ship was sinking; a final demand for
+surrender, with promise of quarter, was made.  Out of his whole crew but
+sixty remained alive; many of them badly wounded.
+
+He quietly announced to his officers and men his decision never to
+surrender, in which all concurred.  They knelt together upon the deck,
+and the admiral made a prayer, which all fervently joined.  With his own
+hand Klaaszoon then lighted the powder magazine, and the ship was blown
+into the air.  Two sailors, all that were left alive, were picked out of
+the sea by the Spaniards and brought on board one of the vessels of the
+fleet.  Desperately mutilated, those grim Dutchmen lived a few minutes to
+tell the tale, and then died defiant on the enemy's deck.
+
+Yet it was thought that a republic, which could produce men like Regnier
+Klaaszoon and his comrades, could be subjected again to despotism, after
+a war for independence of forty years, and that such sailors could be
+forbidden to sail the eastern and western seas.  No epigrammatic phrase
+has been preserved of this simple Regnier, the son of Nicholas.  He only
+did what is sometimes talked about in phraseology more or less melo-
+dramatic, and did it in a very plain way.
+
+Such extreme deeds may have become so much less necessary in the world,
+that to threaten them is apt to seem fantastic.  Exactly at that crisis
+of history, however, and especially in view of the Dutch admiral
+commanding having refused a combat of one to three, the speechless self-
+devotion of the vice-admiral was better than three years of eloquent
+arguments and a ship-load of diplomatic correspondence, such as were
+already impending over the world.
+
+Admiral Haultain returned with all his ships uninjured--the six missing
+vessels having found their way at last safely back to the squadron--but
+with a very great crack to his reputation.  It was urged very justly,
+both by the States-General and the public, that if one ship under a
+determined commander could fight the whole Spanish fleet two days and
+nights, and sink unconquered at last, ten ships more might have put the
+enemy to flight, or at least have saved the vice-admiral from
+destruction.
+
+But very few days after the incidents just described, the merchant fleet
+which, instead of Don Luis Fazardo's war galleons, Admiral Haultain had
+so longed to encounter, arrived safely at San Lucar.  It was the most
+splendid treasure-fleet that had ever entered a Spanish port, and the
+Dutch admiral's heart might well have danced for joy, had he chanced to
+come a little later on the track.  There were fifty ships, under charge
+of General Alonzo de Ochares Galindo and General Ganevaye.  They had on
+board, according to the registers, 1,914,176 dollars worth of bullion for
+the king, and 6,086,617 dollars for merchants, or 8,000,000 dollars in
+all, besides rich cargoes of silk, cochineal, sarsaparilla, indigo,
+Brazil wood, and hides; the result of two years of pressure upon
+Peruvians, Mexicans, and Brazilians.  Never had Spanish finances been
+at so low an ebb.  Never was so splendid an income more desirable.  The
+king's share of the cargo was enough to pay half the arrearages due to
+his mutinous troops; and for such housekeeping this was to be in funds.
+
+There were no further exploits on land or sea that year.  There were,
+however, deaths of three personages often mentioned in this history.  The
+learned Justus Lipsius died in Louvain, a good editor and scholar, and as
+sincere a Catholic at last as he had been alternately a bigoted Calvinist
+and an earnest Lutheran.  His reputation was thought to have suffered by
+his later publications, but the world at large was occupied with sterner
+stuff than those classic productions, and left the final decision to
+posterity.
+
+A man of a different mould, the turbulent, high-born, hard fighting,
+hard-drinking Hohenlo, died also this year, brother-in-law and military
+guardian, subsequently rival and political and personal antagonist, of
+Prince Maurice.  His daring deeds and his troublesome and mischievous
+adventures have been recounted in these pages.  His name will be always
+prominent in the history of the republic, to which he often rendered
+splendid service, but he died, as he had lived, a glutton and a
+melancholy sot.
+
+The third remarkable personage who passed away was one whose name will be
+remembered as long as the Netherlands have a history, old Count John of
+Nassau, only surviving brother of William the Silent.  He had been ever
+prominent and deeply interested in the great religious and political
+movements of upper and lower Germany, and his services in the foundation
+of the Dutch commonwealth were signal, and ever generously acknowledged.
+At one period, as will be recollected, he was stadholder of Gelderland,
+and he was ever ready with sword, purse, and counsel to aid in the great
+struggle for independence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+     General desire for peace--Political aspect of Europe--Designs of the
+     kings of England, France, and Spain concerning the United Provinces
+     --Matrimonial schemes of Spain--Conference between the French
+     ministers and the Dutch envoy--Confidential revelations--Henry's
+     desire to annex the Netherlands to France--Discussion of the
+     subject--Artifice of Barneveld--Impracticability of a compromise
+     between the Provinces and Spain--Formation of a West India Company--
+     Secret mission from the archdukes to the Hague--Reply of the States-
+     General--Return of the archdukes' envoy--Arrangement of an eight
+     months' armistice.
+
+The general tendency towards a pacification in Europe at the close of the
+year could hardly be mistaken.  The languor of fatigue, rather than any
+sincere desire for peace seemed to make negotiations possible.  It was
+not likely that great truths would yet be admitted, or that ruling
+individuals or classes would recognise the rise of a new system out of
+the rapidly dissolving elements of the one which had done its work.  War
+was becoming more and more expensive, while commerce, as the world slowly
+expanded itself, and manifested its unsuspected resources, was becoming
+more and more lucrative.  It was not, perhaps, that men hated each other
+less, but that they had for a time exhausted their power and their love
+for slaughter.  Meanwhile new devices for injuring humanity and retarding
+its civilization were revealing themselves out of that very intellectual
+progress which ennobled the new era.  Although war might still be
+regarded as the normal condition of the civilized world, it was possible
+for the chosen ones to whom the earth and its fulness belonged, to
+inflict general damage otherwise than by perpetual battles.
+
+In the east, west, north, and south of Europe peace was thrusting itself
+as it were uncalled for and unexpected upon the general attention.
+Charles and his nephew Sigismund, and the false Demetrius, and the
+intrigues of the Jesuits, had provided too much work for Sweden, Poland,
+and Russia to leave those countries much leisure for mingling in the more
+important business of Europe at this epoch, nor have their affairs much
+direct connection with this history.  Venice, in its quarrels with the
+Jesuits, had brought Spain, France, and all Italy into a dead lock, out
+of which a compromise had been made not more satisfactory to the various
+parties than compromises are apt to prove.  The Dutch republic still
+maintained the position which it had assumed, a quarter of a century
+before, of actual and legal independence; while Spain, on the other hand,
+still striving after universal monarchy, had not, of course, abated one
+jot of its pretensions to absolute dominion over its rebellious subjects
+in the Netherlands.
+
+The holy Roman and the sublime Ottoman empires had also drifted into
+temporary peace; the exploits of the Persians and other Asiatic movements
+having given Ahmed more work than was convenient on his eastern frontier,
+while Stephen Botshkay had so completely got the better of Rudolph in
+Transylvania as to make repose desirable.  So there was a treaty between
+the great Turk and the great Christian on the basis of what each
+possessed; Stephen Botshkay was recognized as prince of Transylvania with
+part of Hungary, and, when taken off soon afterwards by family poison, he
+recommended on his death-bed the closest union between Hungary and
+Transylvania, as well as peace with the emperor, so long as it might be
+compatible with the rights of the Magyars.
+
+France and England, while suspecting each other, dreading each other, and
+very sincerely hating each other, were drawn into intimate relations by
+their common detestation of Spain, with which power both had now formal
+treaties of alliance and friendship.  This was the result of their mighty
+projects for humbling the house of Austria and annihilating its power.
+England hated the Netherlands because of the injuries she had done them,
+the many benefits she had conferred upon them, and more than all on
+account of the daily increasing commercial rivalry between the two most
+progressive states in Christendom, the two powers which, comparatively
+weak as they were in territory, capital, and population, were most in
+harmony with the spirit of the age.
+
+The Government of England was more hostile than its people to the United
+Provinces.  James never spoke of the Netherlanders but as upstarts and
+rebels, whose success ought to be looked upon with horror by the Lord's
+anointed everywhere.  He could not shut his eyes to the fact that, with
+the republic destroyed, and a Spanish sacerdotal despotism established
+in Holland and Zeeland, with Jesuit seminaries in full bloom in Amsterdam
+and the Hague, his own rebels in Ireland might prove more troublesome
+than ever, and gunpowder plots in London become common occurrences.
+
+The Earl of Tyrone at that very moment was receiving enthusiastic
+hospitality at the archduke's court, much to the disgust of the
+Presbyterian sovereign of the United Kingdom, who nevertheless, despite
+his cherished theology, was possessed with an unconquerable craving for a
+close family alliance with the most Catholic king.  His ministers were
+inclined to Spain, and the British Government was at heart favourable to
+some kind of arrangement by which the Netherlands might be reduced to the
+authority of their former master, in case no scheme could be carried
+into, effect for acquiring a virtual sovereignty over those provinces by
+the British crown.  Moreover, and most of all, the King of France being
+supposed to contemplate the annexation of the Netherlands to his own
+dominions, the jealousy excited by such ambition made it even possible
+for James's Government to tolerate the idea of Dutch independence.  Thus
+the court and cabinet of England were as full of contradictory hopes and
+projects as a madman's brain.
+
+The rivalry between the courts of England and France for the Spanish
+marriages and by means of them to obtain ultimately the sovereignty
+of all the Netherlands, was the key to most of the diplomacy and
+interpalatial intrigue of the several first years of the century.  The
+negotiations of Cornwallis at Madrid were almost simultaneous with the
+schemes of Villeroy and Rosny at Paris.
+
+A portion of the English Government, so soon as its treaty with Spain had
+been signed, seemed secretly determined to do as much injury to the
+republic as might lie in its power.  While at heart convinced that the
+preservation of the Netherlands was necessary for England's safety, it
+was difficult for James and the greater part of his advisers to overcome
+their repugnance to the republic, and their jealousy of the great
+commercial successes which the republic had achieved.
+
+It was perfectly plain that a continuance of the war by England and the
+Netherlands united would have very soon ended in the entire humiliation
+of Spain.  Now that peace had been made, however, it was thought possible
+that England might make a bargain with her late enemy for destroying the
+existence and dividing the territory of her late ally.  Accordingly the
+Spanish cabinet lost no time in propounding, under seal of secrecy, and
+with even more mystery than was usually employed by the most Catholic
+court, a scheme for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta;
+the bridal pair, when arrived at proper age, to be endowed with all the
+Netherlands, both obedient and republican, in full sovereignty.  One
+thing was necessary to the carrying out of this excellent plot, the
+reduction of the republic into her ancient subjection to Spain before her
+territory could be transferred to the future Princess of Wales.
+
+It was proposed by the Spanish Government that England should undertake
+this part of the job, and that King James for such service should receive
+an annual pension of one million ducats a year.  It was also stipulated
+that certain cities in the republican dominions should be pledged to him
+as security for the regular payment of that stipend.  Sir Charles
+Cornwallis, English ambassador in Spain, lent a most favourable ear to
+these proposals, and James eagerly sanctioned them so soon as they were
+secretly imparted to that monarch.  "The king here," said Cornwallis,
+"hath need of the King of Great Britain's arm.  Our king .  .  .  hath
+good occasion to use the help of the King of Spain's purse.  The
+assistance of England to help that nation out of that quicksand of the
+Low Countries, where so long they have struggled to tread themselves out,
+and by proof find that deeper in, will be a sovereign medicine to the
+malady of this estate.  The addition of a million of ducats to the
+revenue of our sovereign will be a good help to his estate."
+
+The Spanish Government had even the effrontery to offer the English envoy
+a reward of two hundred thousand crowns if the negotiations should prove
+successful.  Care was to be taken however that Great Britain, by this
+accession of power, both present and in prospect, should not grow too
+great, Spain reserving to herself certain strongholds and maritime
+positions in the Netherlands, for the proper security of her European and
+Indian commerce.
+
+It was thought high time for the bloodshed to cease in the provinces; and
+as England, by making a treaty of peace with Spain when Spain was at the
+last gasp, had come to the rescue of that power, it was logical that she
+should complete the friendly work by compelling the rebellious provinces
+to awake from their dream of independence.  If the statesmen of Holland
+believed in the possibility of that independence, the statesmen of
+England knew better.  If the turbulent little republic was not at
+last convinced that it had no right to create so much turmoil and
+inconvenience for its neighbours and for Christendom in general in order
+to maintain its existence, it should be taught its duty by the sovereigns
+of Spain and Britain.
+
+It was observed, however, that the more greedily James listened day after
+day to the marriage propositions, the colder became the Spanish cabinet
+in regard to that point, the more disposed to postpone those nuptials "to
+God's providence and future event."
+
+The high hopes founded on these secret stratagems were suddenly dashed to
+the earth before the end of the year; the explosion of the Gunpowder Plot
+blowing the castles in Spain into the air.
+
+Of course the Spanish politicians vied with each other in expressions of
+horror and indignation at the Plot, and the wicked contrivers thereof,
+and suggested to Cornwallis that the King of France was probably at the
+bottom of it.
+
+They declined to give up Owen and Baldwin, however, and meantime the
+negotiations for the marriage of the Prince of Wales and the Infanta, the
+million ducats of yearly pension for the needy James, and the reduction
+of the Dutch republic to its ancient slavery to Spain "under the eye and
+arm of Britain," faded indefinitely away.  Salisbury indeed was always
+too wise to believe in the possibility of the schemes with which James
+and some of his other counsellors had been so much infatuated.
+
+It was almost dramatic that these plottings between James and the
+Catholic king against the life of the republic should have been signally
+and almost simultaneously avenged by the conspiracy of Guido Fawkes.
+
+On the other hand, Rosny had imparted to the Dutch envoy the schemes of
+Henry and his ministers in regard to the same object, early in 1605.
+"Spain is more tired of the war," said he to Aerssens, under seal of
+absolute secrecy, "than you are yourselves.  She is now negotiating for a
+marriage between the Dauphin and the Infanta, and means to give her the
+United Provinces, as at present constituted, for a marriage portion.
+Villeroy and Sillery believe the plan feasible, but demand all the
+Netherlands together.  As for me I shall have faith in it if they send
+their Infanta hither at once, or make a regular cession of the territory.
+Do you believe that my lords the States will agree to the proposition?"
+
+It would be certainly difficult to match in history the effrontery of
+such a question.  The republican envoy was asked point blank whether his
+country would resign her dearly gained liberty and give herself as a
+dowry for Philip the Second's three-years-old grand daughter.  Aerssens
+replied cautiously that he had never heard the matter discussed in the
+provinces.  It had always been thought that the French king had no
+pretensions to their territory, but had ever advocated their
+independence.  He hinted that such a proposition was a mere apple of
+discord thrown between two good allies by Spain.  Rosny admitted the
+envoy's arguments, and said that his Majesty would do nothing without the
+consent of the Dutch Government, and that he should probably be himself
+sent ere long to the Hague to see if he could not obtain some little
+recognition from the States.
+
+Thus it was confidentially revealed to the agent of the republic that her
+candid adviser and ally was hard at work, in conjunction with her ancient
+enemy, to destroy her independence, annex her territory, and appropriate
+to himself all the fruits of her great war, her commercial achievements,
+and her vast sacrifices; while, as we have just seen, English politicians
+at the same moment were attempting to accomplish the same feat for
+England's supposed advantage.  All that was wished by Henry to begin with
+was a little, a very little, recognition of his sovereignty.  "You will
+do well to reflect on this delicate matter in time," wrote Aerssens to
+the Advocate; "I know that the King of Spain is inclined to make this
+offer, and that they are mad enough in this place to believe the thing
+feasible.  For me, I reject all such talk until they have got the
+Infanta--that is to say, until the Greek Kalends.  I am ashamed that they
+should believe it here, and fearful that there is still more evil
+concealed than I know of."
+
+Towards the close of the year 1606 the French Government became still
+more eager to carry out their plans of alliance and absorption.
+Aerssens, who loved a political intrigue better than became a republican
+envoy, was perfectly aware of Henry's schemes.  He was disposed to humour
+them, in order to make sure of his military assistance, but with the
+secret intention of seeing them frustrated by the determined opposition
+of the States.
+
+The French ministers, by command of their sovereign, were disposed to
+deal very plainly.  They informed the Dutch diplomatist, with very little
+circumlocution, that if the republic wished assistance from France she
+was to pay a heavy price for it.  Not a pound of flesh only, but the
+whole body corporate, was to be surrendered if its destruction was to be
+averted by French arms.
+
+"You know," said Sillery, "that princes in all their actions consider
+their interests, and his Majesty has not so much affection for your
+conservation as to induce him to resign his peaceful position.  Tell me,
+I pray you, what would you do for his Majesty in case anything should be
+done for you?  You were lately in Holland.  Do you think that they would
+give themselves to the king if he assisted them?  Do you not believe that
+Prince Maurice has designs on the sovereignty, and would prevent the
+fulfilment of the king's hopes?  What will you do for us in return for
+our assistance?"
+
+Aerssens was somewhat perplexed, but he was cunning at fence.  "We will
+do all we can," said he, "for any change is more supportable than the
+yoke of Spain."
+
+"What can you do then?" persisted Sillery.  "Give us your opinion in
+plain French, I beg of you, and lay aside all passion; for we have both
+the same object--your preservation.  Besides interest, his Majesty has
+affection for you.  Let him only see some advantage for himself to induce
+to assist you more powerfully.  Suppose you should give us what you have
+and what you may acquire in Flanders with the promise to treat secretly
+with us when the time comes.  Could you do that?"
+
+The envoy replied that this would be tearing the commonwealth in pieces.
+If places were given away, the jealousy of the English would be excited.
+Certainly it would be no light matter to surrender Sluys, the fruit of
+Maurice's skill and energy, the splendidly earned equivalent for the loss
+of Ostend.  "As to Sluys and other places in Flanders," said Aerssens,
+"I don't know if towns comprised in our Union could be transferred or
+pledged without their own consent and that of the States.  Should such a
+thing get wind we might be ruined.  Nevertheless I will write to learn
+what his Majesty may hope."
+
+"The people," returned Sillery, "need know nothing of this transfer; for
+it might be made secretly by Prince Maurice, who could put the French
+quietly into Sluys and other Flemish places.  Meantime you had best make
+a journey to Holland to arrange matters so that the deputies, coming
+hither, may be amply instructed in regard to Sluys, and no time be lost.
+His Majesty is determined to help you if you know how to help
+yourselves."
+
+The two men then separated, Sillery enjoining it upon the envoy to see
+the king next morning, "in order to explain to his Majesty, as he had
+just been doing to himself, that this sovereignty could not be
+transferred, without the consent of the whole people, nor the people
+be consulted in secret."
+
+"It is necessary therefore to be armed," continued Henry's minister very
+significantly, "before aspiring to the sovereignty."
+
+Thus there was a faint glimmer of appreciation at the French court of the
+meaning of popular sovereignty.  It did not occur to the minister that
+the right of giving consent was to be respected.  The little obstacle was
+to be overcome by stratagem and by force.  Prince Maurice was to put
+French garrisons stealthily into Sluys and other towns conquered by the
+republic in Flanders.  Then the magnanimous ally was to rise at the right
+moment and overcome all resistance by force of arms.  The plot was a good
+one.  It is passing strange, however, that the character of the Nassaus
+and of the Dutch nation should after the last fifty years have been still
+so misunderstood.  It seemed in France possible that Maurice would thus
+defile his honour and the Netherlanders barter their liberty, by
+accepting a new tyrant in place of the one so long ago deposed.
+
+"This is the marrow of our conference," said Aerssens to Barneveld,
+reporting the interview, "and you may thus perceive whither are tending
+the designs of his Majesty.  It seems that they are aspiring here to the
+sovereignty, and all my letters have asserted the contrary.  If you will
+examine a little more closely, however, you will find that there is no
+contradiction.  This acquisition would be desirable for France if it
+could be made peacefully.  As it can only be effected by war you may make
+sure that it will not be attempted; for the great maxim and basis of this
+kingdom is to preserve repose, and at the same time give such occupation
+to the King of Spain that his means shall be consumed and his designs
+frustrated.  All this will cease if we make peace.
+
+"Thus in treating with the king we must observe two rules.  The first is
+that we can maintain ourselves no longer unless powerfully assisted, and
+that, the people inclining to peace, we shall be obliged to obey the
+people.  Secondly, we must let no difficulty appear as to the desire
+expressed by his Majesty to have the sovereignty of these provinces.
+We ought to let him hope for it, but to make him understand that by
+ordinary and legitimate means he cannot aspire to it.  We will make him
+think that we have an equal desire with himself, and we shall thus take
+from those evil-disposed counsellors the power to injure us who are
+always persuading him that he is only making us great for ourselves, and
+thus giving us the power to injure him.  In short, the king can hope
+nothing from us overtly, and certainly nothing covertly.  By explaining
+to him that we require the authorization of the people, and by showing
+ourselves prompt to grant his request, he will be the very first to
+prevent us from taking any steps, in order that his repose may not be
+disturbed.  I know that France does not wish to go to war with Spain.
+Let us then pretend that we wish to be under the dominion of France, and
+that we will lead our people to that point if the king desires it, but
+that it cannot be done secretly.  Believe me, he will not wish it on such
+conditions, while we shall gain much by this course.  Would to God that
+we could engage France in war with Spain.  All the utility would be ours;
+and the accidents of arms would so press them to Spain, Italy, and other
+places, that they would have little leisure to think of us.  Consider all
+this and conceal it from Buzanval."
+
+Buzanval, it is well known, was the French envoy at the Hague, and it
+must be confessed that these schemes and paltry falsehoods on the part of
+the Dutch agent were as contemptible as any of the plots contrived every
+day in Paris or Madrid.  Such base coin as this was still circulating in
+diplomacy as if fresh from the Machiavellian mint; but the republican
+agent ought to have known that his Government had long ago refused to
+pass it current.
+
+Soon afterwards this grave matter was discussed at the Hague between
+Henry's envoy and Barneveld.  It was a very delicate negotiation.  The
+Advocate wished to secure the assistance of a powerful but most
+unscrupulous ally, and at the same time to conceal his real intention to
+frustrate the French design upon the independence of the republic.
+
+Disingenuous and artful as his conduct unquestionably was, it may at
+least be questioned whether in that age of deceit any other great
+statesman would have been more frank.  If the comparatively weak
+commonwealth, by openly and scornfully refusing all the insidious and
+selfish propositions of the French king, had incurred that monarch's
+wrath, it would have taken a noble position no doubt, but it would have
+perhaps been utterly destroyed.  The Advocate considered himself
+justified in using the artifices of war against a subtle and dangerous
+enemy who wore the mask of a friend.  When the price demanded for
+military protection was the voluntary abandonment of national
+independence in favour of the protector, the man who guided the affairs
+of the Netherlands did not hesitate to humour and to outwit the king who
+strove to subjugate the republic.  At the same time--however one may be
+disposed to censure the dissimulation from the standing-ground of a lofty
+morality--it should not be forgotten that Barneveld never hinted at any
+possible connivance on his part with an infraction of the laws.  Whatever
+might be the result of time, of persuasion, of policy, he never led
+Henry or his ministers to believe that the people of the Netherlands
+could be deprived of their liberty by force or fraud.  He was willing to
+play a political game, in which he felt himself inferior to no man,
+trusting to his own skill and coolness for success.  If the tyrant were
+defeated, and at the same time made to serve the cause of the free
+commonwealth, the Advocate believed this to be fair play.
+
+Knowing himself surrounded by gamblers and tricksters, he probably did
+not consider himself to be cheating because he did not play his cards
+upon the table.
+
+So when Buzanval informed him early in October that the possession of
+Sluys and other Flemish towns would not be sufficient for the king, but
+that they must offer the sovereignty on even more favourable conditions
+than had once been proposed to Henry III., the Advocate told him roundly
+that my lords the States were not likely to give the provinces to any
+man, but meant to maintain their freedom and their rights.  The envoy
+replied that his Majesty would be able to gain more favour perhaps with
+the common people of the country.
+
+When it is remembered that the States had offered the sovereignty of the
+provinces to Henry III., abjectly and as it were without any conditions
+at all, the effrontery of Henry IV. may be measured, who claimed the same
+sovereignty, after twenty years of republican independence, upon even
+more favourable terms than those which his predecessor had rejected.
+
+Barneveld, in order to mitigate the effect of his plump refusal of the
+royal overtures, explained to Buzanval, what Buzanval very well knew,
+that the times had now changed; that in those days, immediately after the
+death of William the Silent, despair and disorder had reigned in the
+provinces, "while that dainty delicacy--liberty--had not so long been
+sweetly tickling the appetites of the people; that the English had not
+then acquired their present footing in the country, nor the house of
+Nassau the age, the credit, and authority to which it had subsequently
+attained."
+
+He then intimated--and here began the deception, which certainly did not
+deceive Buzanval--that if things were handled in the right way, there was
+little doubt as to the king's reaching the end proposed, but that all
+depended on good management.  It was an error, he said, to suppose that
+in one, two, or three months, eight provinces and their principal
+members, to wit, forty good cities all enjoying liberty and equality,
+could be induced to accept a foreign sovereign.
+
+Such language was very like irony, and probably not too subtle to escape
+the fine perception of the French envoy.
+
+The first thing to be done, continued the Advocate, is to persuade the
+provinces to aid the king with all their means to conquer the disunited
+provinces--to dispose of the archdukes, in short, and to drive the
+Spaniards from the soil--and then, little by little, to make it clear
+that there could be no safety for the States except in reducing the whole
+body of the Netherlands under the authority of the king.  Let his Majesty
+begin by conquering and annexing to his crown the provinces nearest him,
+and he would then be able to persuade the others to a reasonable
+arrangement.
+
+Whether the Advocate's general reply was really considered by Buzanval
+as a grave sarcasm, politely veiled, may be a question.  That envoy,
+however, spoke to his Government of the matter as surrounded with
+difficulties, but not wholly desperate.  Barneveld was, he said, inclined
+to doubt whether the archdukes would be able, before any negotiations
+were begun, to comply with the demand which he had made upon them to have
+a declaration in writing that the United Provinces were to be regarded as
+a free people over whom they pretended to no authority.  If so, the
+French king would at once be informed of the fact.  Meantime the envoy
+expressed the safe opinion that, if Prince Maurice and the Advocate
+together should take the matter of Henry's sovereignty in hand with zeal,
+they might conduct the bark to the desired haven.  Surely this was an
+'if' with much virtue in it.  And notwithstanding that he chose to
+represent Barneveld as, rich, tired, at the end of his Latin, and willing
+enough to drop his anchor in a snug harbour, in order to make his fortune
+secure, it was obvious enough that Buzanval had small hope at heart of
+seeing his master's purpose accomplished.
+
+As to Prince Maurice, the envoy did not even affect to believe him
+capable of being made use of, strenuous as the efforts of the French
+Government in that direction had been.  "He has no private designs that
+I can find out," said Buzanval, doing full justice to the straightforward
+and sincere character of the prince.  "He asks no change for himself or
+for his country."  The envoy added, as a matter of private opinion
+however, that if an alteration were to be made in the constitution of
+the provinces, Maurice would prefer that it should be made in favour
+of France than of any other Government.
+
+He lost no opportunity, moreover, of impressing it upon his Government
+that if the sovereignty were to be secured for France at all, it could
+only be done by observing great caution, and by concealing their desire
+to swallow the republic of which they were professing themselves the
+friends.  The jealousy of England was sure to be awakened if France
+appeared too greedy at the beginning.  On the other hand, that power
+"might be the more easily rocked into a profound sleep if France did not
+show its appetite at the very beginning of the banquet."  That the policy
+of France should be steadily but stealthily directed towards getting
+possession of as many strong places as possible in the Netherlands had
+long been his opinion.  "Since we don't mean to go to war," said he a
+year before to Villeroy, "let us at least follow the example of the
+English, who have known how to draw a profit out of the necessities of
+this state.  Why should we not demand, or help ourselves to, a few good
+cities.  Sluys, for example, would be a security for us, and of great
+advantage."
+
+Suspicion was rife on this subject at the court of Spain.  Certainly
+it would be less humiliating to the Catholic crown to permit the
+independence of its rebellious subjects than to see them incorporated
+into the realms of either France or England.  It is not a very striking
+indication of the capacity of great rulers to look far into the future
+that both, France and England should now be hankering after the
+sovereignty of those very provinces, the solemn offer of which by the
+provinces themselves both France and England had peremptorily and almost
+contemptuously refused.
+
+In Spain itself the war was growing very wearisome.  Three hundred
+thousand dollars a month could no longer be relied upon from the royal
+exchequer, or from the American voyages, or from the kite-flying
+operations of the merchant princes on the Genoa exchange.
+
+A great fleet, to be sure, had recently arrived, splendidly laden, from
+the West Indies, as already stated.  Pagan slaves, scourged to their
+dreadful work, continued to supply to their Christian taskmasters the
+hidden treasures of the New World in exchange for the blessings of the
+Evangel as thus revealed; but these treasures could never fill the
+perpetual sieve of the Netherland war, rapidly and conscientiously as
+they were poured into it, year after year.
+
+The want of funds in the royal exchequer left the soldiers in Flanders
+unpaid, and as an inevitable result mutiny admirably organized and calmly
+defiant was again established throughout the obedient provinces.  This
+happened regularly once a year, so that it seemed almost as business-like
+a proceeding for an Eletto to proclaim mutiny as for a sovereign to
+declare martial law.  Should the whole army mutiny at once, what might
+become of the kingdom of Spain?
+
+Moreover, a very uneasy feeling was prevalent that, as formerly, the
+Turks had crossed the Hellespont into Europe by means of a Genoese
+alliance and Genoese galleys, so now the Moors were contemplating the
+reconquest of Granada, and of their other ancient possessions in Spain,
+with the aid of the Dutch republic and her powerful fleets.--[Grotius,
+xv. 715]
+
+The Dutch cruisers watched so carefully on the track of the homeward-
+bound argosies, that the traffic was becoming more dangerous than
+lucrative, particularly since the public law established by Admiral
+Fazardo, that it was competent for naval commanders to hang, drown, or
+burn the crews of the enemy's merchantmen.
+
+The Portuguese were still more malcontent than the Spaniards.  They had
+gained little by the absorption of their kingdom by Spain, save
+participation in the war against the republic, the result of which had
+been to strip them almost entirely of the conquests of Vasco de Gama and
+his successors, and to close to them the ports of the Old World and the
+New.
+
+In the republic there was a party for peace, no doubt, but peace only
+with independence.  As for a return to their original subjection to Spain
+they were unanimously ready to accept forty years more of warfare rather
+than to dream of such a proposition.  There were many who deliberately
+preferred war to peace.  Bitter experience had impressed very deeply on
+the Netherlanders the great precept that faith would never be kept with
+heretics.  The present generation had therefore been taught from their
+cradles to believe that the word peace in Spanish mouths simply meant the
+Holy Inquisition.  It was not unnatural, too, perhaps, that a people who
+had never known what it was to be at peace might feel, in regard to that
+blessing, much as the blind or the deaf towards colour or music; as
+something useful and agreeable, no doubt, but with which they might the
+more cheerfully dispense, as peculiar circumstances had always kept them
+in positive ignorance of its nature.  The instinct of commercial
+greediness made the merchants of Holland and Zeeland, and especially
+those of Amsterdam, dread the revival of Antwerp in case of peace, to the
+imagined detriment of the great trading centres of the republic.  It was
+felt also to be certain that Spain, in case of negotiations, would lay
+down as an indispensable preliminary the abstinence on the part of the
+Netherlanders from all intercourse with the Indies, East or West; and
+although such a prohibition would be received by those republicans with
+perfect contempt, yet the mere discussion of the subject moved their
+spleen.  They had already driven the Portuguese out of a large portion of
+the field in the east, and they were now preparing by means of the same
+machinery to dispute the monopoly of the Spaniards in the west.  To talk
+of excluding such a people as this from intercourse with any portion of
+the Old World or the New was the mumbling of dotage; yet nothing could be
+more certain than that such would be the pretensions of Spain.
+
+As for the stadholder, his vocation was war, his greatness had been
+derived from war, his genius had never turned itself to pacific pursuits.
+Should a peace be negotiated, not only would his occupation be gone, but
+he might even find himself hampered for means.  It was probable that his
+large salaries, as captain and admiral-general of the forces of the
+republic, would be seriously curtailed, in case his services in the field
+were no longer demanded, while such secret hopes as he might entertain of
+acquiring that sovereign power which Barneveld had been inclined to
+favour, were more likely to be fulfilled if the war should be continued.
+At the same time, if sovereignty were to be his at all, he was distinctly
+opposed to such limitations of his authority as were to have been
+proposed by the States to his father.  Rather than reign on those
+conditions, he avowed that he would throw himself head foremost
+from the great tower of Hague Castle.
+
+Moreover, the prince was smarting under the consciousness of having lost
+military reputation, however undeservedly, in the latter campaigns, and
+might reasonably hope to gain new glory in the immediate future.  Thus,
+while his great rival, Marquis Spinola, whose fame had grown to so
+luxuriant a height in so brief a period, had many reasons to dread the
+results of future campaigning, Maurice seemed to have personally much to
+lose and nothing to hope for in peace.  Spinola was over head and ears in
+debt.  In the past two years he had spent millions of florins out of his
+own pocket.  His magnificent fortune and boundless credit were seriously
+compromised.  He had found it an easier task to take Ostend and relieve
+Grol than to bolster up the finances of Spain.
+
+His acceptances were becoming as much a drug upon the exchanges of
+Antwerp, Genoa, or Augsburg, as those of the most Catholic king or their
+Highnesses the archdukes.  Ruin stared him in the face, notwithstanding
+the deeds with which he had startled the world, and he was therefore
+sincerely desirous of peace, provided, of course, that all those
+advantages for which the war had been waged in vain could now be
+secured by negotiation.
+
+There had been, since the arrival of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands,
+just forty years of fighting.  Maurice and the war had been born in the
+same year, and it would be difficult for him to comprehend that his whole
+life's work had been a superfluous task, to be rubbed away now with a
+sponge.  Yet that Spain, on the entrance to negotiations, would demand
+of the provinces submission to her authority, re-establishment of the
+Catholic religion, abstinence from Oriental or American commerce, and the
+toleration of Spanish soldiers over all the Netherlands, seemed
+indubitable.
+
+It was equally unquestionable that the seven provinces would demand
+recognition of their national independence by Spain, would refuse public
+practice of the Roman religion within their domains, and would laugh to
+scorn any proposed limitations to their participation in the world's
+traffic.  As to the presence of Spanish troops on their soil, that was,
+of course, an inconceivable idea.
+
+Where, then, could even a loophole be found through which the possibility
+of a compromise could be espied?  The ideas of the contending parties
+were as much opposed to each other as fire and snow.  Nevertheless, the
+great forces of the world seemed to have gradually settled into such an
+equilibrium as to make the continuance of the war for the present
+impossible.
+
+Accordingly, the peace-party in Brussels had cautiously put forth its
+tentacles late in 1606, and again in the early days of the new year.
+Walrave van Wittenhorst and Doctor Gevaerts had been allowed to come to
+the Hague, ostensibly on private business, but with secret commission
+from the archdukes to feel and report concerning the political
+atmosphere.  They found that it was a penal offence in the republic to
+talk of peace or of truce.  They nevertheless suspected that there might
+be a more sympathetic layer beneath the very chill surface which they
+everywhere encountered.  Having intimated in the proper quarters that the
+archdukes would be ready to receive or to appoint commissioners for peace
+or armistice, if becoming propositions should be made, they were allowed
+on the 10th of January, 1607, to make a communication to the States-
+General.  They indulged in the usual cheap commonplaces on the effusion
+of blood, the calamities of war, and the blessings of peace, and assured
+the States of the very benignant disposition of their Highnesses at
+Brussels.
+
+The States-General, in their reply, seventeen days afterwards, remarking
+that the archdukes persisted in their unfounded pretensions of authority
+over them, took occasion to assure their Highnesses that they had no
+chance to obtain such authority except by the sword.  Whether they
+were like to accomplish much in that way the history of the past might
+sufficiently indicate, while on the other hand the States would always
+claim the right, and never renounce the hope, of recovering those
+provinces which had belonged to their free commonwealth since the
+union of Utrecht, and which force and fraud had torn away.
+
+During twenty-five years that union had been confirmed as a free state by
+solemn decrees, and many public acts and dealings with the mightiest
+potentates of Europe, nor could any other answer now be made to the
+archdukes than the one always given to his holy Roman Imperial Majesty,
+and other princes, to wit, that no negotiations could be had with powers
+making any pretensions in conflict with the solemn decrees and well-
+maintained rights of the United Netherlands.
+
+It was in this year that two words became more frequent in the mouths of
+men than they had ever been before; two words which as the ages rolled on
+were destined to exercise a wider influence over the affairs of this
+planet than was yet dreamed of by any thinker in Christendom.  Those
+words were America and Virginia.  Certainly both words were known before,
+although India was the more general term for these auriferous regions of
+the west, which, more than a century long, had been open to European
+adventure, while the land, baptized in honour of the throned Vestal, had
+been already made familiar to European ears by the exploits of Raleigh.
+But it was not till 1607 that Jamestown was founded, that Captain John
+Smith's adventures with Powhattan, "emperor of Virginia," and his
+daughter the Princess Pocahontas, became fashionable topics in England,
+that the English attempts to sail up the Chickahominy to the Pacific
+Ocean--as abortive as those of the Netherlanders to sail across the North
+Pole to Cathay--were creating scientific discussion in Europe, and that
+the first cargo of imaginary gold dust was exported from the James River.
+
+With the adventurous minds of England all aflame with enthusiasm for
+those golden regions, with the thick-coming fancies for digging, washing,
+refining the precious sands of Virginia rivers, it was certain that a
+great rent was now to be made in the Borgian grant.  It was inevitable
+that the rivalry of the Netherlanders should be excited by the
+achievements and the marvellous tales of Englishmen beyond the Atlantic,
+and that they too should claim their share of traffic with that golden
+and magnificent Unknown which was called America.  The rivalry between
+England and Holland, already so conspicuous in the spicy Archipelagos of
+the east, was now to be extended over the silvery regions of the west.
+The two leading commercial powers of the Old World were now to begin
+their great struggle for supremacy in the western hemisphere.
+
+A charter for what was called a West India Company was accordingly
+granted by the States-General.  West India was understood to extend from
+the French settlements in Newfoundland or Acadia, along the American
+coast to the Straits of Magellan, and so around to the South Sea,
+including the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, besides all of Africa lying
+between the tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope.  At least, within
+those limits the West India Company was to have monopoly of trade, all
+other Netherlanders being warned off the precincts.  Nothing could be
+more magnificent, nor more vague.
+
+The charter was for thirty-six years.  The company was to maintain armies
+and fleets, to build forts and cities, to carry on war, to make treaties
+of peace and of commerce.  It was a small peripatetic republic of
+merchants and mariners, evolved out of the mother republic--which had at
+last established its position among the powers of Christendom--and it was
+to begin its career full grown and in full armour.
+
+The States-General were to furnish the company at starting with one
+million of florins and with twenty ships of war.  The company was to add
+twenty other ships.  The Government was to consist of four chambers of
+directors.  One-half the capital was to be contributed by the chamber of
+Amsterdam, one-quarter by that of Zeeland, one-eighth respectively by the
+chambers of the Meuse and of North Holland.  The chambers of Amsterdam,
+of Zeeland, of the Meuse, and of North Holland were to have respectively
+thirty, eighteen, fifteen, and fifteen directors.  Of these seventy-
+eight, one-third were to be replaced every sixth year by others, while
+from the whole number seventeen persons were to be elected as a permanent
+board of managers.  Dividends were to be made as soon as the earnings
+amounted to ten per cent. on the capital.  Maritime judges were to decide
+upon prizes, the proceeds of which were not to be divided for six years,
+in order that war might be self-sustaining.  Afterwards, the treasury of
+the United Provinces should receive one-tenth, Prince Maurice one-
+thirtieth, and the merchant stockholders the remainder.  Governors and
+generals were to take the oath of fidelity to the States-General.  The
+merchandize of the company was to be perpetually free of taxation, so far
+as regarded old duties, and exempt from war-taxes for the first twenty
+years.
+
+Very violent and conflicting were the opinions expressed throughout the
+republic in regard to this project.  It was urged by those most in favour
+of it that the chief sources of the greatness of Spain would be thus
+transferred to the States-General; for there could be no doubt that the
+Hollanders, unconquerable at sea, familiar with every ocean-path, and
+whose hardy constitutions defied danger and privation and the extremes of
+heat and cold, would easily supplant the more delicately organized
+adventurers from Southern Europe, already enervated by the exhausting
+climate of America.  Moreover, it was idle for Spain to attempt the
+defence of so vast a portion of the world.  Every tribe over which she
+had exercised sway would furnish as many allies for the Dutch company as
+it numbered men; for to obey and to hate the tyrannical Spaniard were
+one.  The republic would acquire, in reality, the grandeur which with
+Spain was but an empty boast, would have the glory of transferring the
+great war beyond the limits of home into those far distant possessions,
+where the enemy deemed himself most secure, and would teach the true
+religion to savages sunk in their own superstitions, and still further
+depraved by the imported idolatries of Rome.  Commerce was now world-
+wide, and the time had come for the Netherlanders, to whom the ocean
+belonged, to tear out from the pompous list of the Catholic king's titles
+his appellation of Lord of the Seas.
+
+There were others, however, whose language was not so sanguine.  They
+spoke with a shiver of the inhabitants of America, who hated all men,
+simply because they were men, or who had never manifested any love for
+their species except as an article of food.  To convert such cannibals to
+Christianity and Calvinism would be a hopeless endeavour, and meanwhile
+the Spaniards were masters of the country.  The attempt to blockade half
+the globe with forty galleots was insane; for, although the enemy had not
+occupied the whole territory, he commanded every harbour and position of
+vantage.  Men, scarcely able to defend inch by inch the meagre little
+sandbanks of their fatherland, who should now go forth in hopes to
+conquer the world, were but walking in their sleep.  They would awake to
+the consciousness of ruin.
+
+Thus men in the United Provinces spake of America.  Especially Barneveld
+had been supposed to be prominent among the opponents of the new Company,
+on the ground that the more violently commercial ambition excited itself
+towards wider and wilder fields of adventure, the fainter grew
+inclinations for peace.  The Advocate, who was all but omnipotent in
+Holland and Zeeland, subsequently denied the imputation of hostility to
+the new corporation, but the establishment of the West India Company,
+although chartered, was postponed.
+
+The archdukes had not been discouraged by the result of their first
+attempts at negotiation, for Wittenhorst had reported a disposition
+towards peace as prevalent in the rebellious provinces, so far as he had
+contrived, during his brief mission, to feel the public pulse.
+
+On the 6th February, 1607, Werner Cruwel, an insolvent tradesman of
+Brussels, and a relative of Recorder Aerssens, father of the envoy at
+Paris, made his appearance very unexpectedly at the house of his kinsman
+at the Hague.  Sitting at the dinner-table, but neither eating nor
+drinking, he was asked by his host what troubled him.  He replied that
+he had a load on his breast.  Aerssens begged him, if it was his recent
+bankruptcy that oppressed him, to use philosophy and patience.  The
+merchant answered that he who confessed well was absolved well.  He then
+took from his pocket-book a letter from President Richardot, and said he
+would reveal what he had to say after dinner.  The cloth being removed,
+and the wife and children of Aerssens having left the room, Cruwel
+disclosed that he had been sent by Richardot and Father Neyen on a secret
+mission.  The recorder, much amazed and troubled, refused to utter a
+word, save to ask if Cruwel would object to confer with the Advocate.
+The merchant expressing himself as ready for such an interview, the
+recorder, although it was late, immediately sent a message to the great
+statesman.  Barneveld was in bed and asleep, but was aroused to receive
+the communication of Aerssens.  "We live in such a calumnious time," said
+the recorder, "that many people believe that you and I know more of the
+recent mission of Wittenhorst than we admit.  You had best interrogate
+Cruwel in the presence of witnesses.  I know not the man's humour, but it
+seems to me since his failure, that, in spite of his shy and lumpish
+manner, he is false and cunning."
+
+The result was a secret interview, on the 8th February, between Prince
+Maurice, Barneveld, and the recorder, in which Cruwel was permitted to
+state the object of his mission.  He then produced a short memorandum,
+signed by Spinola and by Father Neyen, to the effect that the archdukes
+were willing to treat for a truce of ten or twelve years, on the sole
+condition that the States would abstain from the India navigation.  He
+exhibited also another paper, signed only by Neyen, in which that friar
+proposed to come secretly to the Hague, no one in Brussels to know of the
+visit save the archdukes and Spinola; and all in the United Provinces to
+be equally ignorant except the prince, the Advocate, and the recorder.
+Cruwel was then informed that if Neyen expected to discuss such grave
+matters with the prince, he must first send in a written proposal that
+could go on all fours and deserve attention.  A week afterwards Cruwel
+came back with a paper in which Neyen declared himself authorized by the
+archdukes to treat with the States on the basis of their liberty and
+independence, and to ask what they would give in return for so great a
+concession as this renunciation of all right to "the so-called United
+Provinces."
+
+This being a step in advance, it was decided to permit the visit of
+Neyen.  It was, however, the recorded opinion of the distinguished
+personages to whom the proposal was made that it was a trick and a
+deception.  The archdukes would, no doubt, it was said, nominally
+recognise the provinces as a free State, but without really meaning it.
+Meantime, they would do their best to corrupt the Government and to renew
+the war after the republic had by this means been separated from its
+friends.
+
+John Neyen, father commissary of the Franciscans, who had thus invited
+himself to the momentous conference, was a very smooth Flemish friar, who
+seemed admirably adapted, for various reasons, to glide into the rebel
+country and into the hearts of the rebels.  He was a Netherlander, born
+at Antwerp, when Antwerp was a portion of the united commonwealth, of a
+father who had been in the confidential service of William the Silent.
+He was eloquent in the Dutch language, and knew the character of the
+Dutch people.  He had lived much at court, both in Madrid and Brussels,
+and was familiar with the ways of kings and courtiers.  He was a holy
+man, incapable of a thought of worldly advancement for himself, but he
+was a master of the logic often thought most conclusive in those days;
+no man insinuating golden arguments more adroitly than he into half-
+reluctant palms.  Blessed with a visage of more than Flemish frankness,
+he had in reality a most wily and unscrupulous disposition.  Insensible
+to contumely, and incapable of accepting a rebuff, he could wind back to
+his purpose when less supple negotiators would have been crushed.
+
+He was described by his admirers as uniting the wisdom of the serpent
+with the guilelessness of the dove.  Who better than he then, in this
+double capacity, to coil himself around the rebellion, and to carry the
+olive-branch in his mouth?
+
+On the 25th February the monk, disguised in the dress of a burgher,
+arrived at Ryswick, a village a mile and a half from the Hague.  He was
+accompanied on the journey by Cruwel, and they gave themselves out as
+travelling tradesmen.  After nightfall, a carriage having been sent to
+the hostelry, according to secret agreement, by Recorder Aerssens, John
+Neyen was brought to the Hague.  The friar, as he was driven on through
+these hostile regions, was somewhat startled, on looking out, to find
+himself accompanied by two mounted musketeers on each side of the
+carriage, but they proved to have been intended as a protective escort.
+He was brought to the recorder's house, whence, after some delay, he was
+conveyed to the palace.  Here he was received by an unknown and silent
+attendant, who took him by the hand and led him through entirely deserted
+corridors and halls.  Not a human being was seen nor a sound heard until
+his conductor at last reached the door of an inner apartment through
+which he ushered him, without speaking a syllable.  The monk then found
+himself in the presence of two personages, seated at a table covered with
+books and papers.  One was in military undress, with an air about him of
+habitual command, a fair-complexioned man of middle age, inclining to
+baldness, rather stout, with a large blue eye, regular features, and a
+mouse-coloured beard.  The other was in the velvet cloak and grave
+habiliments of a civil functionary, apparently sixty years of age, with a
+massive features, and a shaggy beard.  The soldier was Maurice of Nassau,
+the statesman was John of Olden-Barneveld.
+
+Both rose as the friar entered, and greeted him with cordiality.
+
+"But," said the prince, "how did you dare to enter the Hague, relying
+only on the word of a Beggar?"
+
+"Who would not confide," replied Neyen, "in the word of so exalted, so
+respectable a Beggar as you, O most excellent prince?"
+
+With these facetious words began the negotiations through which an
+earnest attempt was at last to be made for terminating a seemingly
+immortal war.  The conversation, thus begun, rolled amicably and
+informally along.  The monk produced letters from the archdukes, in
+which, as he stated, the truly royal soul of the writers shone
+conspicuously forth.  Without a thought for their own advantage, he
+observed, and moved only by a contemplation of the tears shed by so many
+thousands of beings reduced to extreme misery, their Highnesses, although
+they were such exalted princes, cared nothing for what would be said by
+the kings of Europe and all the potentates of the universe about their
+excessive indulgence."
+
+"What indulgence do you speak of?"  asked the stadholder.
+
+"Does that seem a trifling indulgence," replied John Neyen, "that they
+are willing to abandon the right which they inherited from their
+ancestors over these provinces, to allow it so easily to slip from their
+fingers, to declare these people to be free, over whom, as their subjects
+refusing the yoke, they have carried on war so long?"
+
+"It is our right hands that have gained this liberty," said Maurice, "not
+the archdukes that have granted it.  It has been acquired by our
+treasure, poured forth how freely! by the price of our blood, by so many
+thousands of souls sent to their account.  Alas, how dear a price have
+we paid for it!  All the potentates of Christendom, save the King of
+Spain alone, with his relatives the archdukes, have assented to our
+independence.  In treating for peace we ask no gift of freedom from the
+archdukes.  We claim to be regarded by them as what we are--free men.
+If they are unwilling to consider us as such, let them subject us to
+their dominion if they can.  And as we have hitherto done, we shall
+contend more fiercely for liberty than for life."
+
+With this, the tired monk was dismissed to sleep off the effects of his
+journey and of the protracted discussion, being warmly recommended to the
+captain of the citadel, by whom he was treated with every possible
+consideration.
+
+Several days of private discussion ensued between Neyen and the leading
+personages of the republic.  The emissary was looked upon with great
+distrust.  All schemes of substantial negotiation were regarded by the
+public as visions, while the monk on his part felt the need of all his
+tact and temper to wind his way out of the labyrinth into which he felt
+that he had perhaps too heedlessly entered.  A false movement on his part
+would involve himself and his masters in a hopeless maze of suspicion,
+and make a pacific result impossible.
+
+At length, it having been agreed to refer the matter to the States-
+General, Recorder Aerssens waited upon Neyen to demand his credentials
+for negotiation.  He replied that he had been forbidden to deliver his
+papers, but that he was willing to exhibit them to the States-General.
+
+He came accordingly to that assembly, and was respectfully received.
+All the deputies rose, and he was placed in a seat near the presiding
+officer.  Olden-Barneveld then in a few words told him why he had been
+summoned.  The monk begged that a want of courtesy might not be imputed
+to him, as he had been sent to negotiate with three individuals, not with
+a great assembly.
+
+Thus already the troublesome effect of publicity upon diplomacy was
+manifesting itself.  The many-headed, many-tongued republic was a
+difficult creature to manage, adroit as the negotiator had proved himself
+to be in gliding through the cabinets and council-chambers of princes and
+dealing with the important personages found there.
+
+The power was, however, produced, and handed around the assembly, the
+signature and seals being duly inspected by the members.  Neyen was then
+asked if he had anything to say in public.  He replied in the negative,
+adding only a few vague commonplaces about the effusion of blood and the
+desire of the archdukes for the good of mankind.  He was then dismissed.
+
+A few days afterwards a committee of five from the States-General, of
+which Barneveld was chairman, conferred with Neyen.  He was informed that
+the paper exhibited by him was in many respects objectionable, and that
+they had therefore drawn up a form which he was requested to lay before
+the archdukes for their guidance in making out a new power.  He was asked
+also whether the king of Spain was a party to these proposals for
+negotiation.  The monk answered that he was not informed of the fact,
+but that he considered it highly probable.
+
+John Neyen then departed for Brussels with the form prescribed by the
+States-General in his pocket.  Nothing could exceed the indignation with
+which the royalists and Catholics at the court of the archdukes were
+inspired by the extreme arrogance and obstinacy thus manifested by the
+rebellious heretics.  That the offer on the part of their master to
+negotiate should be received by them with cavils, and almost with
+contempt, was as great an offence as their original revolt.  That the
+servant should dare to prescribe a form for the sovereign to copy seemed
+to prove that the world was coming to an end.  But it was ever thus with
+the vulgar, said the courtiers and church dignitaries, debating these
+matters.  The insanity of plebeians was always enormous, and never more
+so than when fortune for a moment smiled.  Full of arrogance and temerity
+when affairs were prosperous, plunged in abject cowardice when dangers
+and reverses came--such was the People--such it must ever be.
+
+Thus blustered the priests and the parasites surrounding the archduke,
+nor need their sentiments amaze us.  Could those honest priests and
+parasites have ever dreamed, before the birth of this upstart republic,
+that merchants, manufacturers, and farmers, mechanics and advocates--the
+People, in short--should presume to meddle with affairs of state?  Their
+vocation had been long ago prescribed--to dig and to draw, to brew and to
+bake, to bear burdens in peace and to fill bloody graves in war--what
+better lot could they desire?
+
+Meantime their superiors, especially endowed with wisdom by the
+Omnipotent, would direct trade and commerce, conduct war and diplomacy,
+make treaties, impose taxes, fill their own pockets, and govern the
+universe.  Was not this reasonable and according to the elemental laws?
+If the beasts of the field had been suddenly gifted with speech, and had
+constituted themselves into a free commonwealth for the management of
+public affairs, they would hardly have caused more profound astonishment
+at Brussels and Madrid than had been excited by the proceedings of the
+rebellious Dutchmen.
+
+Yet it surely might have been suggested, when the lament of the courtiers
+over the abjectness of the People in adversity was so emphatic, that Dorp
+and Van Loon, Berendrecht and Gieselles, with the men under their
+command, who had disputed every inch of Little Troy for three years and
+three months, and had covered those fatal sands with a hundred thousand
+corpses, had not been giving of late such evidence of the People's
+cowardice in reverses as theory required.  The siege of Ostend had been
+finished only three years before, and it is strange that its lessons
+should so soon have been forgotten.
+
+It was thought best, however, to dissemble.  Diplomacy in those days--
+certainly the diplomacy of Spain and Rome--meant simply dissimulation.
+Moreover, that solid apothegm, 'haereticis non servanda fides,' the most
+serviceable anchor ever forged for true believers, was always ready to be
+thrown out, should storm or quicksand threaten, during the intricate
+voyage to be now undertaken.
+
+John Neyen soon returned to the Hague, having persuaded his masters
+that it was best to affect compliance with the preliminary demand of
+the States.  During the discussions in regard to peace, it would not be
+dangerous to treat with the rebel provinces as with free states, over
+which the archdukes pretended to no authority, because--so it was
+secretly argued--this was to be understood with a sense of similitude.
+"We will negotiate with them as if they were free," said the greyfriar to
+the archduke and his counsellors, "but not with the signification of true
+and legitimate liberty.  They have laid down in their formula that we are
+to pretend to no authority over them.  Very well.  For the time being we
+will pretend that we do not pretend to any such authority.  To negotiate
+with them as if they were free will not make them free.  It is no
+recognition by us that they are free.  Their liberty could never be
+acquired by their rebellion.  This is so manifest that neither the king
+nor the archdukes can lose any of their rights over the United Provinces,
+even should they make this declaration."
+
+Thus the hair-sputters at Brussels--spinning a web that should be stout
+enough to entrap the noisy, blundering republicans at the Hague, yet so
+delicate as to go through the finest dialectical needle.  Time was to
+show whether subtilty or bluntness was the best diplomatic material.
+
+The monk brought with him three separate instruments or powers, to be
+used according to his discretion.  Admitted to the assembly of the
+States-General, he produced number one.
+
+It was instantly rejected.  He then offered number two, with the same
+result.  He now declared himself offended, not on his own account, but
+for the sake of his masters, and asked leave to retire from the assembly,
+leaving with them the papers which had been so benignantly drawn up, and
+which deserved to be more carefully studied.
+
+The States, on their parts, were sincerely and vehemently indignant.
+What did all this mean, it was demanded, this producing one set of
+propositions after another?  Why did the archdukes not declare their
+intentions openly and at once?  Let the States depart each to the several
+provinces, and let John Neyen be instantly sent out of the country.  Was
+it thought to bait a trap for the ingenuous Netherlanders, and catch them
+little by little, like so many wild animals?  This was not the way the
+States dealt with the archdukes.  What they meant they put in front--
+first, last, and always.  Now and in the future they said and they would
+say exactly what they wished, candidly and seriously.  Those who pursued
+another course would never come into negotiation with them.
+
+The monk felt that he had excited a wrath which it would be difficult
+to assuage.  He already perceived the difference between a real and an
+affected indignation, and tried to devise some soothing remedy.  Early
+next morning he sent a petition in writing to the States for leave to
+make an explanation to the assembly.  Barneveld and Recorder Aerssens, in
+consequence, came to him immediately, and heaped invectives upon his head
+for his duplicity.
+
+Evidently it was a different matter dealing with this many-headed roaring
+beast, calling itself a republic, from managing the supple politicians
+with whom he was more familiar.  The noise and publicity of these
+transactions were already somewhat appalling to the smooth friar who was
+accustomed to negotiate in comfortable secrecy.  He now vehemently
+protested that never man was more sincere than he, and implored for time
+to send to Brussels for another power.  It is true that number three was
+still in his portfolio, but he had seen so much indignation on the
+production of number two as to feel sure that the fury of the States
+would know no bounds should he now confess that he had come provided with
+a third.
+
+It was agreed accordingly to wait eight days, in which period he might
+send for and receive the new power already in his possession.  These
+little tricks were considered masterly diplomacy in those days, and by
+this kind of negotiators; and such was the way in which it was proposed
+to terminate a half century of warfare.
+
+     [The narrative is the monk's own, as preserved by his admirer,
+     the Jesuit Gallucci, (ubi sup.)]
+
+The friar wrote to his masters, not of course to ask for a new power, but
+to dilate on the difficulties to be anticipated in procuring that which
+the losing party is always most bent upon in circumstances like these,
+and which was most ardently desired by the archdukes--an armistice.  He
+described Prince Maurice as sternly opposed to such a measure, believing
+that temporary cessation of hostilities was apt to be attended with
+mischievous familiarity between the opposing camps, with relaxation of
+discipline, desertion, and various kinds of treachery, and that there was
+no better path to peace than that which was trampled by contending hosts.
+
+Seven days passed, and then Neyen informed the States that he had at last
+received a power which he hoped would prove satisfactory.  Being admitted
+accordingly to the assembly, he delivered an eloquent eulogy upon the
+sincerity of the archdukes, who, with perhaps too little regard for their
+own dignity and authority, had thus, for the sake of the public good, so
+benignantly conceded what the States had demanded.
+
+Barneveld, on receiving the new power, handed to Neyen a draught of an
+agreement which he was to study at his leisure, and in which he might
+suggest alterations.  At the same time it was demanded that within three
+months the written consent of the King of Spain to the proposed
+negotiations should be produced.  The Franciscan objected that it did
+not comport with the dignity of the archdukes to suppose the consent of
+any other sovereign needful to confirm their acts.  Barneveld insisted
+with much vehemence on the necessity of this condition.  It was perfectly
+notorious, he said, that the armies commanded by the archdukes were
+subject to the King of Spain, and were called royal armies.  Prince
+Maurice observed that all prisoners taken by him had uniformly called
+themselves soldiers of the Crown, not of the archdukes, nor of Marquis
+Spinola.
+
+Barneveld added that the royal power over the armies in the Netherlands
+and over the obedient provinces was proved by the fact that all
+commanders of regiments, all governors of fortresses, especially of
+Antwerp, Ghent, Cambray, and the like, were appointed by the King of
+Spain.  These were royal citadels with royal garrisons.  That without the
+knowledge and consent of the King of Spain it would be impossible to
+declare the United Provinces free, was obvious; for in the cession by
+Philip II. of all the Netherlands it was provided that, without the
+consent of the king, no part of that territory could be ceded, and this
+on pain of forfeiting all the sovereignty.  To treat without the king
+was therefore impossible.
+
+The Franciscan denied that because the sovereigns of Spain sent funds and
+auxiliary troops to Flanders, and appointed military commanders there of
+various degrees, the authority of the archdukes was any the less supreme.
+Philip II. had sent funds and troops to sustain the League, but he was
+not King of France.
+
+Barneveld probably thought it not worth his while to reply that Philip,
+with those funds and those troops, had done his best to become King of
+France, and that his failure proved nothing for the argument either way.
+
+Neyen then returned once more to Brussels, observing as he took leave
+that the decision of the archdukes as to the king's consent was very
+doubtful, although he was sure that the best thing for all parties
+would be to agree to an armistice out of hand.
+
+This, however, was far from being the opinion of the States or the
+stadholder.
+
+After conferring with his masters, the monk came down by agreement from
+Antwerp to the Dutch ships which lay in the, Scheld before Fort Lillo.
+On board one of these, Dirk van der Does had been stationed with a
+special commission from the States to compare documents.  It was
+expressly ordered that in these preliminary negotiations neither party
+was to go on shore.  On a comparison of the agreement brought by Neyen
+from Brussels with the draught furnished by Barneveld, of which Van der
+Does had a copy, so many discrepancies appeared that the document of the
+archdukes was at once rejected.  But of course the monk had a number two,
+and this, after some trouble, was made to agree with the prescribed form.
+Brother John then, acting upon what he considered the soundest of
+principles--that no job was so difficult as not to be accomplished with
+the help of the precious metals--offered his fellow negotiator a valuable
+gold chain as a present from the archdukes.  Dirk van der Does accepted
+the chain, but gave notice of the fact to his Government.
+
+The monk now became urgent to accompany his friend to the Hague, but this
+had been expressly forbidden by the States.  Neyen felt sure, he said,
+of being able by arguments, which he could present by word of mouth, to
+overcome the opposition to the armistice were he once more to be admitted
+to the assembly.  Van der Does had already much overstaid his appointed
+time, bound to the spot, as it were, by the golden chain thrown around
+him by the excellent friar, and he now, in violation of orders, wrote to
+the Hague for leave to comply with this request.  Pending the answer, the
+persuasive Neyen convinced him, much against his will, that they might
+both go together as far as Delft.  To Delft they accordingly went; but,
+within half a league of that place, met a courier with strict orders that
+the monk was at once to return to Brussels.  Brother John was in great
+agitation.  Should he go back, the whole negotiation might come to
+nought; should he go on, he might be clapped into prison as a spy.  Being
+conscious, however, that his services as a spy were intended to be the
+most valuable part of his mission, he resolved to proceed in that
+capacity.  So he persuaded his friend Dirk to hide him in the hold of a
+canal-boat.  Van der Does was in great trepidation himself, but on
+reaching the Hague and giving up his gold chain to Barneveld, he made his
+peace, and obtained leave for the trembling but audacious friar to come
+out of his hiding-place.
+
+Appearing once more before the States-General on the afternoon of 7th
+May,  Neyen urged with much eloquence the propriety of an immediate
+armistice both by sea and land, insisting that it would be a sanguinary
+farce to establish a cessation of hostilities upon one element while
+blood and treasure were profusely flowing on the oceans.  There were
+potent reasons for this earnestness on the part of the monk to procure a
+truce to maritime operations, as very soon was to be made evident to the
+world.  Meantime, on this renewed visit, the negotiator expressed himself
+as no longer doubtful in regard to the propriety of requesting the
+Spanish king's consent to the proposed negotiations.  That consent,
+however, would in his opinion depend upon the earnestness now to be
+manifested by the States in establishing the armistice by sea and land,
+and upon their promptness in recalling the fleets now infesting the coast
+of Spain.  No immediate answer was given to these representations, but
+Neyen was requested to draw up his argument in writing, in order that it
+might be duly pondered by the States of the separate provinces.
+
+The radical defect of the Dutch constitution--the independent sovereignty
+claimed by each one of the provinces composing the confederation, each of
+those provinces on its part being composed of cities, each again claiming
+something very like sovereignty for itself--could not fail to be
+manifested whenever, great negotiations with foreign powers were to be
+undertaken.  To obtain the unanimous consent of seven independent little
+republics was a work of difficulty, requiring immense expenditure of time
+in comparatively unimportant contingencies.  How intolerable might become
+the obstructions, the dissensions, and the delays, now that a series of
+momentous and world-wide transactions was beginning, on the issue of
+which the admission of a new commonwealth into the family of nations,
+the international connections of all the great powers of Christendom,
+the commerce of the world, and the peace of Europe depended.
+
+Yet there was no help for it but to make the best present use of the
+institutions which time and great events had bestowed upon the young
+republic, leaving to a more convenient season the task of remodelling the
+law.  Meanwhile, with men who knew their own minds, who meant to speak
+the truth, and who were resolved to gather in at last the harvest
+honestly and bravely gained by nearly a half-century of hard fighting, it
+would be hard for a legion of friars, with their heads full of quirks and
+their wallets full of bills of exchange, to carry the day for despotism.
+
+Barneveld was sincerely desirous of peace.  He was well aware that his
+province of Holland, where he was an intellectual autocrat, was
+staggering under the burden of one half the expenses of the whole
+republic.  He knew that Holland in the course of the last nine years,
+notwithstanding the constantly heightened rate of impost on all objects
+of ordinary consumption, was twenty-six millions of florins behindhand,
+and that she had reason therefore to wish for peace.  The great Advocate,
+than whom no statesman in Europe could more accurately scan the world's
+horizon, was convinced that the propitious moment for honourable
+straightforward negotiations to secure peace, independence, and free
+commerce, free religion and free government, had come, and he had
+succeeded in winning the reluctant Maurice into a partial adoption,
+at least, of his opinions.
+
+The Franciscan remained at Delft, waiting, by direction of the States,
+for an answer to his propositions, and doing his best according to the
+instructions of his own Government to espy the condition and sentiments
+of the enemy.  Becoming anxious after the lapse of a fortnight, he wrote
+to Barneveld.  In reply the Advocate twice sent a secret messenger,
+urging, him to be patient, assuring him that the affair was working well;
+that the opposition to peace came chiefly from Zeeland and from certain
+parties in Amsterdam vehemently opposed to peace or truce; but that the
+rest of Holland was decidedly in favour of the negotiations.
+
+A few days passed, and Neyen was again summoned before the assembly.
+Barneveld now informed him that the Dutch fleet would be recalled from
+the coast of Spain so soon as the consent of his Catholic Majesty to
+the negotiations arrived, but that it would be necessary to confine the
+cessation of naval warfare within certain local limits.  Both these
+conditions were strenuously opposed by the Franciscan, who urged that
+the consent of the Spanish king was certain, but that this new
+proposition to localize the maritime armistice would prove to be fraught
+with endless difficulties and dangers.  Barneveld and the States
+remaining firm, however, and giving him a formal communication of their
+decision in writing, Neyen had nothing for it but to wend his way back
+rather malcontent to Brussels.
+
+It needed but a brief deliberation at the court of the archdukes to bring
+about the desired arrangement.  The desire for an armistice, especially
+for a cessation of hostilities by sea, had been marvellously stimulated
+by an event to be narrated in the next chapter.  Meantime, more than the
+first three months of the year had been passed in these secret
+preliminary transactions, and so softly had the stealthy friar sped to
+and fro between Brussels and the Hague, that when at last the armistice
+was announced it broke forth like a sudden flash of fine weather in the
+midst of a raging storm.  No one at the archduke's court knew of the
+mysterious negotiations save the monk himself, Spinola, Richardot,
+Verreycken, the chief auditor, and one or two others.  The great Belgian
+nobles, from whom everything had been concealed, were very wroth, but the
+Belgian public was as much delighted as amazed at the prospects of peace.
+In the United Provinces opinions were conflicting, but doubtless joy and
+confidence were the prevailing emotions.
+
+Towards the middle of April the armistice was publicly announced.  It was
+to last for eight months from the 4th of May.  During this period no
+citadels were to be besieged, no camps brought near a city, no new
+fortifications built, and all troops were to be kept carefully within
+walls.  Meantime commissioners were to be appointed by the archdukes to
+confer with an equal number of deputies of the United Provinces for peace
+or for a truce of ten, fifteen, or twenty years, on the express ground
+that the archdukes regarded the United Provinces as free countries, over
+which their Highnesses pretended to no authority.
+
+The armistice on land was absolute.  On sea, hostilities were to cease in
+the German Ocean and in the channel between England and France, while it
+was also provided that the Netherland fleet should, within a certain
+period, be recalled from the Spanish coast.
+
+A day of public fast, humiliation, thanksgiving, and prayer was ordered
+throughout the republic for the 9th of May, in order to propitiate the
+favour of Heaven on the great work to be undertaken; and, as a further
+precaution, Prince Maurice ordered all garrisons in the strong places to
+be doubled, lest the slippery enemy should take advantage of too much
+confidence reposed in his good faith.  The preachers throughout the
+commonwealth, each according to his individual bias, improved the
+occasion by denouncing the Spaniard from their pulpits and inflaming the
+popular hatred against the ancient enemy, or by dilating on the blessings
+of peace and the horrors of war.  The peace party and the war party, the
+believers in Barneveld and the especial adherents of Prince Maurice,
+seemed to divide the land in nearly equal portions.
+
+While the Netherlands, both rebellious and obedient, were filled with
+these various emotions, the other countries of Europe were profoundly
+amazed at the sudden revelation.  It was on the whole regarded as a
+confession of impotence on the part of Spain that the archdukes should
+now prepare to send envoys to the revolted provinces as to a free and
+independent people.  Universal monarchy, brought to such a pass as this,
+was hardly what had been expected after the tremendous designs and the
+grandiloquent language on which the world had so long been feeding as its
+daily bread.  The spectacle of anointed monarchs thus far humbling
+themselves to the people of rebellion dictating terms, instead of
+writhing in dust at the foot of the throne--was something new in history.
+The heavens and earth might soon be expected to pass away, now that such
+a catastrophe was occurring.
+
+The King of France had also been kept in ignorance of these events.  It
+was impossible, however, that the negotiations could go forward without
+his consent and formal participation.  Accordingly on receiving the news
+he appointed an especial mission to the Hague--President Jeannin and De
+Russy, besides his regular resident ambassador Buzanval.  Meantime
+startling news reached the republic in the early days of May.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A penal offence in the republic to talk of peace or of truce
+Accepting a new tyrant in place of the one so long ago deposed
+As if they were free will not make them free
+As neat a deception by telling the truth
+Cargo of imaginary gold dust was exported from the James River
+Delay often fights better than an army against a foreign invader
+Diplomacy of Spain and Rome--meant simply dissimulation
+Draw a profit out of the necessities of this state
+England hated the Netherlands
+Friendly advice still more intolerable
+Haereticis non servanda fides
+He who confessed well was absolved well
+Insensible to contumely, and incapable of accepting a rebuff
+Languor of fatigue, rather than any sincere desire for peace
+Much as the blind or the deaf towards colour or music
+Subtle and dangerous enemy who wore the mask of a friend
+Word peace in Spanish mouths simply meant the Holy Inquisition
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY UNITED NETHERLANDS, 1605-07 ***
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