to accept the
handsome offers of peace held out by the King of Spain, and to leave them
to their fate.

It seemed scarcely possible that the letter to Junius and the
instructions for the Earl should have been dated the same week, and
should have emanated from the same mind; but such was the fact.

He was likewise privately to assure Maurice and Hohenlo--in order to
remove their anticipated opposition to the peace--that such care should
be taken in providing for them, as that "they should have no just cause
to dislike thereof, but to rest satisfied withal."

With regard to the nature of his authority, he was instructed to claim a
kind of dictatorship in everything regarding the command of the forces,
and the distribution of the public treasure. All offices were to be at
his disposal. Every florin contributed by the States was to be placed in
his hands, and spent according to his single will. He was also to have
plenary power to prevent the trade in victuals with the enemy by death
and confiscation.

If opposition to any of these proposals were made by the States-General,
he was to appeal to the States of each Province; to the towns and
communities, and in case it should prove impossible for him "to be
furnished with the desired authority," he was then instructed to say that
it was "her Majesty's meaning to leave them to their own counsel and
defence, and to withdraw the support that she had yielded to them: seeing
plainly that the continuance of the confused government now reigning
among them could not but work their ruin."

Both these papers came into Barneveld's hands, through the agency of
Ortel, the States' envoy in England, before the arrival of the Earl in
the Netherlands.

Of course they soon became the topics of excited conversation and of
alarm in every part of the country. Buckhurst, touched to the quick by
the reflection upon those--proceedings of his which had been so
explicitly enjoined upon him, and so reluctantly undertaken--appealed
earnestly to her Majesty. He reminded her, as delicately as possible,
that her honour, as well as his own, was at stake by Leicester's insolent
disavowals of her authorized ambassador. He besought her to remember
"what even her own royal hand had written to the Duke of Parma;" and how
much his honour was interested "by the disavowing of his dealings about
the peace begun by her Majesty's commandment." He adjured her with much
eloquence to think upon the consequences of