ight to give the advice of 1617 as the
recommendation of tolerance in 1613, he scrupulously abstained, as he had
done in all his letters, from saying a disrespectful word as to the
glaring inconsistency between the two communications, or to the hostility
manifested towards himself personally by the British ambassador. He had
always expressed the hope, he said, that the King would adhere to his
original position, but did not dispute his right to change his mind, nor
the good faith which had inspired his later letters. It had been his
object, if possible, to reconcile the two different systems recommended
by his Majesty into one harmonious whole.

His whole aim had been to preserve the public peace as it was the duty of
every magistrate, especially in times of such excitement, to do. He could
never comprehend why the toleration of the Five Points should be a danger
to the Reformed religion. Rather, he thought, it would strengthen the
Church and attract many Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, and other good
patriots into its pale. He had always opposed the compulsory acceptance
by the people of the special opinions of scribes and doctors. He did not
consider, he said, the difference in doctrine on this disputed point
between the Contra-Remonstrants and Remonstrants as one-tenth the value
of the civil authority and its right to make laws and ordinances
regulating ecclesiastical affairs.

He believed the great bulwark of the independence of the country to be
the Reformed Church, and his efforts had ever been to strengthen that
bulwark by preventing the unnecessary schism which might prove its ruin.
Many questions of property, too, were involved in the question--the
church buildings, lands and pastures belonging to the Counts of Holland
and their successors--the States having always exercised the right of
church patronage--'jus patronatus'--a privilege which, as well as
inherited or purchased advowsons, had been of late flagrantly interfered
with.

He was asked if he had not said that it had never been the intention of
the States-General to carry on the war for this or that religion.

He replied that he had told certain clergymen expressing to him their
opinion that the war had been waged solely for the furtherance of their
especial shade of belief, that in his view the war had been undertaken
for the conservation of the liberties and laws of the land, and of its
good people. Of that freedom the first and foremost point was t