een content to see me fall unarmed and defenceless into the hands of
four individuals whose design was to murder me; but when, by the agency
of Divine Providence, I escaped the assassins' blows and had recovered
from my wounds, they conceived a violent hatred against such of their
magistrates as they believed to have most to do with the direction of
public affairs; it is against me chiefly that this hatred has manifested
itself, although I was nothing but a servant of the state; it is this
that has obliged me to demand my discharge from the office of
councillor-pensionary." He was at once succeeded by Gaspard van Fagel,
passionately devoted to the Prince of Orange.

Popular passion is as unjust as it is violent in its excesses. Cornelius
van Witt, but lately sharing with his brother the public confidence, had
just been dragged, as a criminal, to the Hague, accused by a wretched
barber of having planned the assassination of the Prince of Orange. In
vain did the magistrates of the town of Dordrecht claim their right of
jurisdiction over their fellow-citizen. Cornelius van Witt was put to
the torture to make him confess his crime. 'You will not force me to
confess a thing I never even thought of," he said, whilst the pulleys
were dislocating his limbs. His baffled judges heard him repeating
Horace's ode: _Just um et tenacem propositi virum_. . . . At the end
of three hours he was carried back to his cell, broken but indomitable.
The court condemned him to banishment; his accuser, Tichelaer, was not
satisfied.

Before long, at his instigation, the mob collected about the prison,
uttering imprecations against the judges and their clemency. "They are
traitors!" cried Tichelaer, "but let us first take vengeance on those
whom we have." John van Witt had been brought to the prison by a message
supposed to have come from the ruart. In vain had his daughter conjured
him not to respond to it. "What are you come here for?" exclaimed
Cornelius, on seeing his brother enter. "Did you not send for me?"
"No, certainly not." Then we are lost," said John van Witt, calmly. The
shouts of the crowd redoubled; a body of cavalry still preserved order; a
rumor suddenly spread that the peasants from the environs were marching
on the Hague to plunder it; the States of Holland sent orders to the
Count of Tilly to move against them; the brave soldier demanded a written
order. "I will obey," he said, "but the two brothers are lost."