e called National, and
that meantime every effort was making to discredit all those who stood up
for the laws of these Provinces and to make them odious and despicable in
the eyes of the common people.

"Especially it was I that was thus made the object of hatred and contempt
in their eyes. Hundreds of lies and calumnies, circulated in the form of
libels, seditious pamphlets, and lampoons, compelled me to return from
Utrecht to the Hague. Since that time I have repeatedly offered my
services to your Excellency for the promotion of mutual accommodation and
reconciliation of differences, but without success."

He then alluded to the publication with which the country was ringing,
'The Necessary and Living Discourse of a Spanish Counsellor', and which
was attributed to his former confidential friend, now become his
deadliest foe, ex-Ambassador Francis Aerssens, and warned the Prince that
if he chose, which God forbid, to follow the advice of that seditious
libel, nothing but ruin to the beloved Fatherland and its lovers, to the
princely house of Orange-Nassau and to the Christian religion could be
the issue. "The Spanish government could desire no better counsel," he
said, "than this which these fellows give you; to encourage distrust and
estrangement between your Excellency and the nobles, the cities, and the
magistrates of the land and to propose high and haughty imaginings which
are easy enough to write, but most difficult to practise, and which can
only enure to the advantage of Spain. Therefore most respectfully I beg
your Excellency not to believe these fellows, but to reject their
counsels . . . . Among them are many malignant hypocrites and ambitious
men who are seeking their own profit in these changes of government--many
utterly ragged and beggarly fellows and many infamous traitors coming
from the provinces which have remained under the dominion of the
Spaniard, and who are filled with revenge, envy, and jealousy at the
greater prosperity and bloom of these independent States than they find
at home.

"I fear," he said in conclusion, "that I have troubled your Excellency
too long, but to the fulfilment of my duty and discharge of my conscience
I could not be more brief. It saddens me deeply that in recompense for my
long and manifold services I am attacked by so many calumnious, lying,
seditious, and fraudulent libels, and that these indecencies find their
pretext and their food in the evil disposition of your