irk in those merchants and advocates to urge
that the Queen was not going to war with the great potentate for their
sakes alone. To Elizabeth's honour, she did thoroughly comprehend that
the war of the Netherlands was the war of England, of Protestantism, and
of European liberty, and that she could no longer, without courting her
own destruction, defer taking a part in active military operations. It
was no quirk, then, but solid reasoning, for the States to regard the
subject in the same light. Holland and England were embarked in one boat,
and were to sink or swim together. It was waste of time to wrangle so
fiercely over pounds and shillings, but the fault was not to be
exclusively imputed to the one side or the other. There were bitter
recriminations, particularly on the part of Elizabeth, for it was not
safe to touch too closely either the pride or the pocket of that frugal
and despotic heroine. "The two thousand pounds promised by the States to
Norris upon the muster of the two thousand volunteers," said Walsingham,
"were not paid. Her Majesty is not a little offended therewith, seeing
how little care they have to yield her satisfaction, which she imputeth
to proceed rather from contempt, than from necessity. If it should fall
out, however, to be such as by them is pretended, then doth she conceive
her bargain to be very ill made, to join her fortune with so weak and
broken an estate." Already there were indications that the innocent might
be made to suffer for the short-comings of the real culprits; nor would
it be, the first time, or by any means the last, for Davison to appear in
the character of a scape-goat.

"Surely, sir," continued Mr. Secretary, "it is a thing greatly to be
feared that the contributions they will yield will fall not more true in
paper than in payment; which if it should so happen, it would turn some
to blame, whereof you among others are to bear your part."

And thus the months of September and of October wore away, and the
ratifications of the treaty had not arrived from the Netherlands.
Elizabeth became furious, and those of the Netherland deputation who had
remained in England were at their wits' end to appease her choler. No
news arrived for many weeks. Those were not the days of steam and
magnetic telegraphs--inventions by which the nature of man and the aspect
of history seem altered--and the Queen had nothing for it but to fret,
and the envoys to concert with her ministers expedients