p then proceeded flatly to refuse the India navigation, giving
reasons very satisfactory to himself why the provinces ought cheerfully
to abstain from that traffic. If the confederates, in consequence of the
conditions thus definitely announced, moved by their innate pride and
obstinacy, and relying on the assistance of their allies, should break
off the negotiations, then it would be desirable to adopt the plan
proposed by Jeannin to Richardot, and conclude a truce for five or six
years. The king expressed his own decided preference for a truce rather
than a peace, and his conviction that Jeannin had made the suggestion by
command of his sovereign.

The negotiators stood exactly where they did when Friar John, disguised
as a merchant, first made his bow to the Prince and Barneveld in the
palace at the Hague.

The archduke, on receiving at last this peremptory letter from the king,
had nothing for it but to issue instructions accordingly to the
plenipotentiaries at the Hague. A decisive conference between those
diplomatists and the States' commissioners took place immediately
afterwards.

It was on the 20th August.

Although it had been agreed on the 1st May to break off negotiations on
the ensuing 1st of August, should no result be reached, yet three weeks
beyond that period had been suffered to elapse, under a tacit agreement
to wait a little longer for the return of the friar. President Jeannin,
too, had gone to Paris on the 20th June, to receive new and important
instructions; verbal and written, from his sovereign, and during his
absence it had not been thought expedient to transact much business.
Jeannin returned to the Hague on the 15th of August, and, as definite
instructions from king and archduke had now arrived, there seemed no
possibility of avoiding an explanation.

The Spanish envoys accordingly, with much gravity, and as if they had
been propounding some cheerful novelty, announced to the assembled
commissioners that all reports hitherto flying about as to the Spanish
king's intentions were false.

His Majesty had no intention of refusing to give up the sovereignty of
the provinces. On the contrary, they were instructed to concede that
sovereignty freely and frankly to my lords the States-General--a pearl
and a precious jewel, the like of which no prince had ever given away
before. Yet the king desired neither gold nor silver, neither cities nor
anything else of value in exchange. He asked only for