enjoy the benefit of the truce, and could reside wherever they
liked without being deprived of their property;

That the treaty should be ratified by the archdukes and the
States-General within four days. As to the ratification of the king, the
archdukes were bound to deliver it in good and due form within three
months, in order that the lords the States-General, their subjects and
inhabitants, might enjoy effectively the fruits of the treaty;

That the treaty should be published everywhere immediately after the
ratification of the archdukes and States-General.

This document was signed by the ambassadors of the Kings of France and
Great Britain, as mediators, and then by the deputies of the archdukes,
and afterwards by those of the lords the States-General.

There were thirty-eight articles in all, but the chief provisions have
been indicated. The other clauses, relating to boundaries, confiscations,
regulations of duties, frontier fortifications, the estates of the Nassau
family, and other sequestrated property, have no abiding interest.

There was also a secret and special treaty which was demanded of the King
of Spain by the States-General, and by him accorded.

This secret treaty consisted of a single clause. That clause was made up
of a brief preamble and of a promise. The preamble recited textually
article fourth of the public treaty relative to the India trade. The
promise was to this effect.

For the period of the truce the Spanish commissioners pledged the faith
of the king and of his successors that his Majesty would cause no
impediment, whether by sea or land, to the States nor their subjects, in
the traffic that thereafter might be made in the countries of all
princes, potentates, and peoples who might permit the same, in whatever
place it might be, even without the limits designated, and everywhere
else, nor similarly to those carrying on such traffic with them, and that
the king and his successors would faithfully carry into effect everything
thus laid, down, so that the said traffic should be free and secure,
consenting even, in order that the clause might be the more authentic,
that it should be considered as inserted in the principal treaty, and as
making part thereof.

It will be perceived that the first article of all, and the last or
secret article, contained the whole marrow of the treaty. It may be well
understood, therefore, with what wry faces the Spanish plenipotentiaries
ultimately si