ssion to treat with the King's
envoys, and pledged herself beforehand to, ratify all their proceedings,
she meant to perform the promise to which she had affixed her royal name
and seal. She could not know that the Spanish monarch was deliberately
putting his name to a lie, and chuckling in secret over the credulity of
his English sister, who was willing to take his word and his bond. Of a
certainty the English were no match for southern diplomacy.

But Elizabeth was now more impatient than ever that the other two
preliminaries should be settled, the place of conferences, and the
armistice.

"Be plain with the Duke," she wrote to her envoys, "that we have
tolerated so many weeks in tarrying a commission, that I will never
endure more delays. Let him know he deals with a prince who prizes her
honour more than her life: Make yourselves such as stand of your
reputations."

Sharp words, but not sharp enough to prevent a further delay of a month;
for it was not till the 6th June that the commissioners at last came
together at Bourbourg, that "miserable little hole," on the coast between
Ostend and Newport, against which Gamier had warned them. And now there
was ample opportunity to wrangle at full length on the next preliminary,
the cessation of arms. It would be superfluous to follow the altercations
step by step--for negotiations there were none--and it is only for the
sake of exhibiting at full length the infamy of diplomacy, when diplomacy
is unaccompanied by honesty, that we are hanging up this series of
pictures at all. Those bloodless encounters between credulity and vanity
upon one side, and gigantic fraud on the other, near those very sands of
Newport, and in sight of the Northern Ocean, where, before long, the most
terrible battles, both by land and sea, which the age had yet witnessed,
were to occur, are quite as full of instruction and moral as the most
sanguinary combats ever waged.

At last the commissioners exchanged copies of their respective powers.
After four months of waiting and wrangling, so much had been achieved--a
show of commissions and a selection of the place for conference. And now
began the long debate about the cessation of arms. The English claimed an
armistice for the whole dominion of Philip and Elizabeth respectively,
during the term of negotiation, and for twenty days after. The Spanish
would grant only a temporary truce, terminable at six days' notice, and
that only for the four cautio