knees demand his pardon, and I say as
much of Rotterdam."

Such insolence on the part of an ambassador to the first minister of a
great republic was hard to bear. Barneveld was not the man to brook it.
He replied with great indignation. "I was born in liberty," he said with
rising choler, "I cannot digest this kind of language. The King of Spain
himself never dared to speak in so high a style."

"I well understand that logic," returned the Ambassador with continued
insolence. "You hold your argument to be drawn 'a majori ad minus;' but I
pray you to believe that the King of Great Britain is peer and companion
to the King of Spain, and that his motto is, 'Nemo me impune lacessit.'"

And so they parted in a mutual rage; Winwood adding on going out of the
room, "Whatsoever I propose to you in his Majesty's name can find with
you neither goust nor grace."

He then informed Lord Rochester that "the man was extremely distempered
and extremely distasted with his Majesty.

"Some say," he added, "that on being in England when his Majesty first
came to the throne he conceived some offence, which ever since hath
rankled in his heart, and now doth burst forth with more violent malice."

Nor was the matter so small as it superficially appeared. Dependence of
one nation upon the dictation of another can never be considered
otherwise than grave. The subjection of all citizens, clerical or lay, to
the laws of the land, the supremacy of the State over the Church, were
equally grave subjects. And the question of sovereignty now raised for
the first time, not academically merely, but practically, was the gravest
one of all. It was soon to be mooted vigorously and passionately whether
the United Provinces were a confederacy or a union; a league of sovereign
and independent states bound together by treaty for certain specified
purposes or an incorporated whole. The Advocate and all the principal
lawyers in the country had scarcely a doubt on the subject. Whether it
were a reasonable system or an absurd one, a vigorous or an imbecile form
of government, they were confident that the Union of Utrecht, made about
a generation of mankind before, and the only tie by which the Provinces
were bound together at all, was a compact between sovereigns.

Barneveld styled himself always the servant and officer of the States of
Holland. To them was his allegiance, for them he spoke, wrought, and
thought, by them his meagre salary was paid. At the c