guaged, big fellows,
such as were not to be found in England or anywhere else. When they
refused to be made his tools, they became tinkers, boors, devils, and
atheists. He covered them with curses and devoted them to the gibbet. He
began by warmly commending Buys and Barneveld, Hohenlo and Maurice, and
endowing them with every virtue. Before he left the country he had
accused them of every crime, and would cheerfully, if he could, have
taken the life of every one of them. And it was quite the same with
nearly every Englishman who served with or under him. Wilkes and
Buckhurst, however much the objects of his previous esteem; so soon as
they ventured to censure or even to criticise his proceedings, were at
once devoted to perdition. Yet, after minute examination of the record,
public and private, neither Wilkes nor Buckhurst can be found guilty of
treachery or animosity towards him, but are proved to have been governed,
in all their conduct, by a strong sense of duty to their sovereign, the
Netherlands, and Leicester himself.

To Sir John Norris, it must be allowed, that he was never fickle, for he
had always entertained for that distinguished general an honest,
unswerving, and infinite hatred, which was not susceptible of increase or
diminution by any act or word. Pelham, too, whose days were numbered, and
who was dying bankrupt and broken-hearted, at the close of the Earl's
administration, had always been regarded by him with tenderness and
affection. But Pelham had never thwarted him, had exposed his life for
him, and was always proud of being his faithful, unquestioning, humble
adherent. With perhaps this single exception, Leicester found himself at
the end of his second term in the Provinces, without a single friend and
with few respectable partisans. Subordinate mischievous intriguers like
Deventer, Junius, and Otheman, were his chief advisers and the
instruments of his schemes.

With such qualifications it was hardly possible--even if the current of
affairs had been flowing smoothly--that he should prove a successful
governor of the new republic. But when the numerous errors and
adventitious circumstances are considered--for some of which he was
responsible, while of others he was the victim--it must be esteemed
fortunate that no great catastrophe occurred. His immoderate elevation;
his sudden degradation, his controversy in regard to the sovereignty, his
abrupt departure for England, his protracted absence, his