er of the French princes and all those of the old
Huguenot party who had been foolish enough to act with the princes in
their purely selfish schemes against the government, and the overflowing
hatred of King James, whose darling schemes of Spanish marriages and a
Spanish alliance had been foiled by the Advocate's masterly policy in
France and in the duchies, and whose resentment at having been so
completely worsted and disarmed in the predestination matter and in the
redemption of the great mortgage had deepened into as terrible wrath as
outraged bigotry and vanity could engender; all these elements made up a
stormy atmosphere in which the strongest heart might have quailed. But
Barneveld did not quail. Doubtless he loved power, and the more danger he
found on every side the less inclined he was to succumb. But he honestly
believed that the safety and prosperity of the country he had so long and
faithfully served were identified with the policy which he was pursuing.
Arrogant, overbearing, self-concentrated, accustomed to lead senates and
to guide the councils and share the secrets of kings, familiar with and
almost an actor in every event in the political history not only of his
own country but of every important state in Christendom during nearly two
generations of mankind, of unmatched industry, full of years and
experience, yet feeling within him the youthful strength of a thousand
intellects compared to most of those by which he was calumniated,
confronted, and harassed; he accepted the great fight which was forced
upon him. Irascible, courageous, austere, contemptuous, he looked around
and saw the Republic whose cradle he had rocked grown to be one of the
most powerful and prosperous among the states of the world, and could
with difficulty imagine that in this supreme hour of her strength and her
felicity she was ready to turn and rend the man whom she was bound by
every tie of duty to cherish and to revere.

Sir Dudley Carleton, the new English ambassador to the States, had
arrived during the past year red-hot from Venice. There he had perhaps
not learned especially to love the new republic which had arisen among
the northern lagunes, and whose admission among the nations had been at
last accorded by the proud Queen of the Adriatic, notwithstanding the
objections and the intrigues both of French and English representatives.
He had come charged to the brim with the political spite of James against
the Advocate, and