ld share any different fate
from that under which it saw the obedient provinces gasping before its
eyes. To renounce religious and political liberty and self-government,
and to submit unconditionally to the authority of Philip II. as
administered by Ernest and Fuentes, was hardly to be expected as the
result of the three years' campaigns of Maurice of Nassau.

The two doctors of law laid the affectionate common-places of the
archduke before the States-General, each of them making, moreover, a long
and flowery oration in which the same protestations of good will and
hopes of future good-fellowship were distended to formidable dimensions
by much windy rhetoric. The accusations which had been made against the
Government of Brussels of complicity in certain projects of assassination
were repelled with virtuous indignation.

The answer of the States-General was wrathful and decided. They informed
the commissioners that they had taken up arms for a good cause and meant
to retain them in their hands. They expressed their thanks for the
expressions of good will which had been offered, but avowed their right
to complain before God and the world of those who under pretext of peace
were attempting to shed the innocent blood of Christians, and to procure
the ruin and destruction of the Netherlands. To this end the
state-council of Spain was more than ever devoted, being guilty of the
most cruel and infamous proceedings and projects. They threw out a rapid
and stinging summary of their wrongs; and denounced with scorn the
various hollow attempts at negotiation during the preceding twenty-five
years. Coming down to the famous years 1587 and 1588, they alluded in
vehement terms to the fraudulent peace propositions which had been thrown
as a veil over the Spanish invasion of England and the Armada; and they
glanced at the mediation-projects of the emperor in 1591 at the desire of
Spain, while armies were moving in force from Germany, Italy, and the
Netherlands to crush the King of France, in order that Philip might
establish his tyranny over all kings, princes, provinces, and republics.
That the Spanish Government was secretly dealing with the emperor and
other German potentates for the extension of his universal empire
appeared from intercepted letters of the king--copies of which were
communicated--from which it was sufficiently plain that the purpose of
his Majesty was not to bestow peace and tranquillity upon the
Netherlands. The