istian unity,
accommodation, and love, by which his Majesty and these Provinces would
be best served."

Were these the words of a baffled conspirator and traitor? Were they
uttered to produce an effect upon public opinion and avert a merited
condemnation by all good men? There is not in them a syllable of
reproach, of anger, of despair. And let it be remembered that they were
not written for the public at all. They were never known to the public,
hardly heard of either by the Advocate's enemies or friends, save the one
to whom they were addressed and the monarch to whom that friend was
accredited. They were not contained in official despatches, but in
private, confidential outpourings to a trusted political and personal
associate of many years. From the day they were written until this hour
they have never been printed, and for centuries perhaps not read.

He proceeded to explain what he considered to be the law in the
Netherlands with regard to military allegiance. It is not probable that
there was in the country a more competent expounder of it; and defective
and even absurd as such a system was, it had carried the Provinces
successfully through a great war, and a better method for changing it
might have been found among so law-loving and conservative a people as
the Netherlanders than brute force.

"Information has apparently been sent to England," he said, "that My
Lords of Holland through their commissioners in Utrecht dictated to the
soldiery standing at their charges something that was unreasonable. The
truth is that the States of Holland, as many of them as were assembled,
understanding that great haste was made to send his Excellency and some
deputies from the other provinces to Utrecht, while the members of the
Utrecht assembly were gone to report these difficulties to their
constituents and get fresh instructions from them, wishing that the
return of those members should be waited for and that the Assembly of
Holland might also be complete--a request which was refused--sent a
committee to Utrecht, as the matter brooked no delay, to give information
to the States of that province of what was passing here and to offer
their good offices.

"They sent letters also to his Excellency to move him to reasonable
accommodation without taking extreme measures in opposition to those
resolutions of the States of Utrecht which his Excellency had promised to
conform with and to cause to be maintained by all officers and