relied
upon the more practical agency of Dr. Lopez, Andrada, Renichon, and the
rest--and the peace-makers accordingly made their appearance at the
Hague, under safe conduct, and provided with very conciliatory letters
from his Highness to the States-General. In all ages and under all
circumstances it is safe to enlarge, with whatever eloquence may be at
command, upon the blessings of peace and upon the horrors of war; for the
appeal is not difficult to make, and a response is certain in almost
every human breast. But it is another matter to descend from the general
to the particular, and to demonstrate how the desirable may be attained
and the horrible averted. The letters of Ernest were full of benignity
and affection, breathing a most ardent desire that the miserable war, now
a quarter of a century old, should be then and there terminated. But not
one atom of concession was offered, no whisper breathed that the
republic, if it should choose to lay down its victorious arms, and
renounce its dearly gained independence, should share any different fate
from that under which it saw the obedient provinces gasping before its
eyes. To renounce religious and political liberty and self-government,
and to submit unconditionally to the authority of Philip II. as
administered by Ernest and Fuentes, was hardly to be expected as the
result of the three years' campaigns of Maurice of Nassau.

The two doctors of law laid the affectionate common-places of the
archduke before the States-General, each of them making, moreover, a long
and flowery oration in which the same protestations of good will and
hopes of future good-fellowship were distended to formidable dimensions
by much windy rhetoric. The accusations which had been made against the
Government of Brussels of complicity in certain projects of assassination
were repelled with virtuous indignation.

The answer of the States-General was wrathful and decided. They informed
the commissioners that they had taken up arms for a good cause and meant
to retain them in their hands. They expressed their thanks for the
expressions of good will which had been offered, but avowed their right
to complain before God and the world of those who under pretext of peace
were attempting to shed the innocent blood of Christians, and to procure
the ruin and destruction of the Netherlands. To this end the
state-council of Spain was more than ever devoted, being guilty of the
most cruel and infamous proc