wn to be the
indispensable condition--first, last, and always--to any possible peace.
Every citizen of the republic was to be whipped out of the East and West
Indies, should he dare to show his face in those regions. The
States-General, while swallowing the crumb of sovereignty vouchsafed by
the archdukes, were to accept them as protectors, in order not to fall a
prey to the enemies whom they imagined to be their friends.

What could be more hopeless than such negotiations? What more dreary than
the perpetual efforts of two lines to approach each other which were
mathematically incapable of meeting? That the young republic, conscious
of her daily growing strength, should now seek refuge from her nobly won
independence in the protectorate of Albert, who was himself the vassal of
Philip, was an idea almost inconceivable to the Dutch mind. Yet so
impossible was it for the archdukes to put themselves into human
relations with this new and popular Government, that in the inmost
recesses of their breasts they actually believed themselves, when making
the offer, to be performing a noble act of Christian charity.

The efforts of Jeannin and of the English ambassador were now
unremitting, and thoroughly seconded by Barneveld. Maurice was almost at
daggers drawn, not only with the Advocate but with the foreign envoys.
Sir Ralph Winwood, who had, in virtue of the old treaty arrangements with
England, a seat in the state-council at the Hague, and who was a man of a
somewhat rough and insolent deportment, took occasion at a session of
that body, when the prince was present, to urge the necessity of at once
resuming the ruptured negotiations. The King of Great Britain; he said,
only recommended a course which he was himself always ready to pursue.
Hostilities which were necessary, and no others, were just. Such, and
such only, could be favoured by God or by pious kings. But wars were not
necessary which could be honourably avoided. A truce was not to be
despised, by which religious liberty and commerce were secured, and it
was not the part of wisdom to plunge into all the horrors of immediate
war in order to escape distant and problematical dangers; that might
arise when the truce should come to an end. If a truce were now made, the
kings of both France and England would be guarantees for its faithful
observance. They would take care that no wrong or affront was offered to
the States-General.

Maurice replied, with a sneer, to thes