s, to the fatherland, and to the true Christian
religion--I and mine should now be so traduced. I hope that God Almighty
will second my upright conscience, and cause his Majesty soon to see the
injustice done to me and mine. To defend the resolutions of My Lords the
States of Holland is my office, duty, and oath, and I assure you that
those resolutions are taken with wider vision and scope than his Majesty
can believe. Let this serve for My Lords' defence and my own against
indecent calumny, for my duty allows me to pursue no other course."

He again alluded to the dreary affair of Vorstius, and told the Envoy
that the venation caused by it was incredible. "That men unjustly defame
our cities and their regents is nothing new," he said; "but I assure you
that it is far more damaging to the common weal than the defamers
imagine."

Some of the private admirers of Arminius who were deeply grieved at so
often hearing him "publicly decried as the enemy of God" had been
defending the great heretic to James, and by so doing had excited the
royal wrath not only against the deceased doctor and themselves, but
against the States of Holland who had given them no commission.

On the other hand the advanced orthodox party, most bitter haters of
Barneveld, and whom in his correspondence with England he uniformly and
perhaps designedly called the Puritans, knowing that the very word was a
scarlet rag to James, were growing louder and louder in their demands.
"Some thirty of these Puritans," said he, "of whom at least twenty are
Flemings or other foreigners equally violent, proclaim that they and the
like of them mean alone to govern the Church. Let his Majesty compare
this proposal with his Royal Present, with his salutary declaration at
London in the year 1603 to Doctor Reynolds and his associates, and with
his admonition delivered to the Emperor, kings, sovereigns, and
republics, and he will best understand the mischievous principles of
these people, who are now gaining credit with him to the detriment of the
freedom and laws of these Provinces."

A less enlightened statesman than Barneveld would have found it easy
enough to demonstrate the inconsistency of the King in thus preaching
subserviency of government to church and favouring the rule of Puritans
over both. It needed but slender logic to reduce such a policy on his
part to absurdity, but neither kings nor governments are apt to value
themselves on their logic. So long as J