hensible, but had they
been as shallow and despicable as they seem to us enlightened, it is
passing strange that they should have furnished matter for a criminal
prosecution.

It was doubtless a disappointment for the promoters of the company, the
chief of whom was a bankrupt, to fail in obtaining their charter, but it
was scarcely high-treason to oppose it. There is no doubt however that
the disapprobation with which Barneveld regarded the West India Company,
the seat of which was at Amsterdam, was a leading cause of the deadly
hostility entertained for him by the great commercial metropolis.

It was bad enough for the Advocate to oppose unconditional predestination
and the damnation of infants, but to frustrate a magnificent system of
privateering on the Spaniards in time of truce was an unpardonable crime.

The patience with which the venerable statesman submitted to the taunts,
ignorant and insolent cross-questionings, and noisy interruptions of his
judges, was not less remarkable than the tenacity of memory which enabled
him thus day after day, alone, unaided by books, manuscripts, or friendly
counsel, to reconstruct the record of forty years, and to expound the
laws of the land by an array of authorities, instances, and illustrations
in a manner that would be deemed masterly by one who had all the
resources of libraries, documents, witnesses, and secretaries at command.

Only when insidious questions were put tending to impute to him
corruption, venality, and treacherous correspondence with the enemy--for
they never once dared formally to accuse him of treason--did that almost
superhuman patience desert him.

He was questioned as to certain payments made by him to a certain van der
Vecken in Spanish coin. He replied briefly at first that his money
transactions with that man of business extended over a period of twenty
or thirty years, and amounted to many hundred thousands of florins,
growing out of purchases and sales of lands, agricultural enterprises on
his estates, moneys derived from his professional or official business
and the like. It was impossible for him to remember the details of every
especial money payment that might have occurred between them.

Then suddenly breaking forth into a storm of indignation; he could mark
from these questions, he said, that his enemies, not satisfied with
having wounded his heart with their falsehoods, vile forgeries, and
honour-robbing libels, were determined to brea