troops at once, and by land, the sea voyage being liable to too many
objections?

Don John answered these three questions--which, in reality, were but
three forms of a single question--upon the same day, the 24th of January.
His reply was as complex as the demand had been simple. It consisted of a
proposal in six articles, and a requisition in twenty-one, making in all
twenty-seven articles. Substantially he proposed to dismiss the foreign
troops--to effect a general pacification of the Netherlands--to govern on
the basis of the administration in his imperial father's reign--to
arrange affairs in and with regard to the assembly-general as the King
should judge to be fitting--to forgive and forget past offences--and to
release all prisoners. On the other hand he required the estates to pay
the troops before their departure, and to provide ships enough to
transport them, as the Spaniards did not choose to go by land, and as the
deputies, at Luxemburg had consented to their removal by sea.
Furthermore, he demanded that the states should dismiss their own troops.
He required ecclesiastical authority to prove the Ghent Pacification not
prejudicial to the Catholic religion; legal authority that it was not
detrimental to his Majesty's supremacy; and an oath from the
states-general to uphold both points inviolably, and to provide for their
maintenance in Holland and Zealand. He claimed the right to employ about
his person soldiers and civil functionaries of any nation he might
choose, and he exacted from the states a promise to prevent the Prince of
Orange from removing his son, Count van Buren, forcibly or fraudulently,
from his domicile in Spain.

The deputies were naturally indignant at this elaborate trifling. They
had, in reality, asked him but one question, and that a simple one--Would
he maintain the treaty of Ghent? Here were twenty-seven articles in
reply, and yet no answer to that question. They sat up all night,
preparing a violent protocol, by which the Governor's claims were to be
utterly demolished. Early in the morning, they waited upon his Highness,
presented the document, and at the same time asked him plainly, by word
of mouth, did he or did he not intend to uphold the treaty. Thus pressed
into a corner in presence of the deputies, the members of the State
Council who were in attendance from Brussels, and the envoys whom the
Emperor had recently sent to assist at these deliberations, the Governor
answered, No