t
counsellor of the state, as the one who so confidentially instructed me
on my departure for France, and who had obtained for himself so great
authority that all the most important affairs of the country were
entrusted to him, was the cause that I simply and sincerely wrote to him
all that people were in the habit of saying at this court.

"If I had known in the least or suspected that he was not what he ought
to be in the service of My Lords the States and of your princely Grace
and for the welfare and tranquillity of the land, I should have been well
on my guard against letting myself in the least into any kind of
communication with him whatever."

The reader has seen how steadily and frankly the Advocate had kept
Langerac as well as Caron informed of passing events, and how little
concealment he made of his views in regard to the Synod, the
Waartgelders, and the respective authority of the States-General and
States-Provincial. Not only had Langerac no reason to suspect that
Barneveld was not what he ought to be, but he absolutely knew the
contrary from that most confidential correspondence with him which he was
now so abjectly repudiating. The Advocate, in a protracted constitutional
controversy, had made no secret of his views either officially or
privately. Whether his positions were tenable or flimsy, they had been
openly taken.

"What is more," proceeded the Ambassador, "had I thought that any account
ought to be made of what I wrote to him concerning the sovereignty of the
Provinces, I should for a certainty not have failed to advise your Grace
of it above all."

He then, after profuse and maudlin protestations of his most dutiful zeal
all the days of his life for "the service, honour, reputation, and
contentment of your princely Grace," observed that he had not thought it
necessary to give him notice of such idle and unfounded matters, as being
likely to give the Prince annoyance and displeasure. He had however
always kept within himself the resolution duly to notify him in case he
found that any belief was attached to the reports in Paris. "But the
reports," he said, "were popular and calumnious inventions of which no
man had ever been willing or able to name to him the authors."

The Ambassador's memory was treacherous, and he had doubtless neglected
to read over the minutes, if he had kept them, of his wonderful
disclosures on the subject of the sovereignty before thus exculpating
himself. It will be