to the world, can
hardly be a question. The preterhuman prolixity of negotiation which
appals us in the days when steam and electricity had not yet annihilated
time and space, ought also to be obsolete. At a period when the news of a
great victory was thirty days on its travels from Gibraltar to Flushing,
aged counsellors justified themselves in a solemn consumption of time
such as might have exasperated Jared or Methuselah in his boyhood. Men
fought as if war was the normal condition of humanity, and negotiated as
if they were all immortal. But has the art political kept pace with the
advancement of physical science? If history be valuable for the examples
it furnishes both for imitation and avoidance, then the process by which
these peace conferences were initiated and conducted may be wholesome
food for reflection.

John Neyen, who, since his secret transactions already described at the
Hague and Fort Lillo, had been speeding back and forth between Brussels,
London, and Madrid, had once more returned to the Netherlands, and had
been permitted to reside privately at Delft until the king's ratification
should arrive from Spain.

While thus established, the industrious friar had occupied his leisure in
studying the situation of affairs. Especially he had felt inclined to
renew some of those little commercial speculations which had recently
proved so comfortable in the case of Dirk van der Does. Recorder
Cornelius Aerssens came frequently to visit him, with the private consent
of the Government, and it at once struck the friar that Cornelius would
be a judicious investment. So he informed the recorder that the archdukes
had been much touched with his adroitness and zeal in facilitating the
entrance of their secret agent into the presence of the Prince and the
Advocate. Cruwel, in whose company the disguised Neyen had made his first
journey to the Hague, was a near relative of Aerssena, The honest monk
accordingly, in recognition of past and expected services, begged one day
the recorder's acceptance of a bill, drawn by Marquis Spinola on Henry
Beckman, merchant of Amsterdam, for eighty thousand ducats. He also
produced a diamond ring, valued at ten thousand florins, which he
ventured to think worthy the acceptance of Madame Aerssens. Furthermore,
he declared himself ready to pay fifteen thousand crowns in cash, on
account of the bill, whenever it might be, desired, and observed that the
archdukes had ordered the house