tter had
been passed over with absolute disdain by the persons attacked, but
calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain. It
proved to be in these cases.

"You have the plague mark on your flesh, oh pope, oh pensioner," said one
libeller. "There are letters safely preserved to make your process for
you. Look out for your head. Many have sworn your death, for it is more
than time that you were out of the world. We shall prove, oh great bribed
one, that you had the 120,000 little ducats." The preacher Uytenbogaert
was also said to have had 80,000 ducats for his share. "Go to Brussels,"
said the pamphleteer; "it all stands clearly written out on the register
with the names and surnames of all you great bribe-takers."

These were choice morsels from the lampoon of the notary Danckaerts.

"We are tortured more and more with religious differences," wrote
Barneveld; "with acts of popular violence growing out of them the more
continuously as they remain unpunished, and with ever increasing
jealousies and suspicions. The factious libels become daily more numerous
and more impudent, and no man comes undamaged from the field. I, as a
reward for all my troubles, labours, and sorrows, have three double
portions of them. I hope however to overcome all by God's grace and to
defend my actions with all honourable men so long as right and reason
have place in the world, as to which many begin to doubt. If his Majesty
had been pleased to stick to the letters of 1613, we should never have
got into these difficulties . . . . It were better in my opinion that
Carleton should be instructed to negotiate in the spirit of those
epistles rather than to torment us with the National Synod, which will do
more harm than good."

It is impossible not to notice the simplicity and patience with which the
Advocate, in the discharge of his duty as minister of foreign affairs,
kept the leading envoys of the Republic privately informed of events
which were becoming day by day more dangerous to the public interests and
his own safety. If ever a perfectly quiet conscience was revealed in the
correspondence of a statesman, it was to be found in these letters.

Calmly writing to thank Caron for some very satisfactory English beer
which the Ambassador had been sending him from London, he proceeded to
speak again of the religious dissensions and their consequences. He sent
him the letter and remonstrance which he had felt himself obliged to