y did in his
letters of 1613 . . . . If his Majesty could only be induced to write
fresh letters in similar tone, I should venture to hope better fruits
from them than from this attempt to thrust a national synod upon our
necks, which many of us hold to be contrary to law, reason, and the Act
of Union."

So long as it was possible to hope that the action of the States of
Holland would prevent such a catastrophe, he worked hard to direct them
in what he deemed the right course.

"Our political and religious differences," he said, "stand between hope
and fear."

The hope was in the acceptance of the Provincial Synod--the fear lest the
National Synod should be carried by a minority of the cities of Holland
combining with a majority of the other Provincial States.

"This would be in violation," he said, "of the so-called Religious Peace,
the Act of Union, the treaty with the Duke of Anjou, the negotiations of
the States of Utrecht, and with Prince Maurice in 1590 with cognizance of
the States-General and those of Holland for, the governorship of that
province, the custom of the Generality for the last thirty years
according to which religious matters have always been left to the
disposition of the States of each province . . . . Carleton is
strenuously urging this course in his Majesty's name, and I fear that in
the present state of our humours great troubles will be the result."

The expulsion by an armed mob, in the past year, of a Remonstrant
preacher at Oudewater, the overpowering of the magistracy and the forcing
on of illegal elections in that and other cities, had given him and all
earnest patriots grave cause for apprehension. They were dreading, said
Barneveld, a course of crimes similar to those which under the Earl of
Leicester's government had afflicted Leyden and Utrecht.

"Efforts are incessant to make the Remonstrants hateful," he said to
Caron, "but go forward resolutely and firmly in the conviction that our
friends here are as animated in their opposition to the Spanish dominion
now and by God's grace will so remain as they have ever proved themselves
to be, not only by words, but works. I fear that Mr. Carleton gives too
much belief to the enviers of our peace and tranquillity under pretext of
religion, but it is more from ignorance than malice."

Those who have followed the course of the Advocate's correspondence,
conversation, and actions, as thus far detailed, can judge of the
gigantic nature of