ongress of the
States-General, the scene of his most important functions, he was the
ambassador of Holland, acting nominally according to their instructions,
and exercising the powers of minister of foreign affairs and, as it were,
prime minister for the other confederates by their common consent. The
system would have been intolerable, the great affairs of war and peace
could never have been carried on so triumphantly, had not the
preponderance of the one province Holland, richer, more powerful, more
important in every way than the other six provinces combined, given to
the confederacy illegally, but virtually, many of the attributes of
union. Rather by usucaption than usurpation Holland had in many regards
come to consider herself and be considered as the Republic itself. And
Barneveld, acting always in the name of Holland and with the most modest
of titles and appointments, was for a long time in all civil matters the
chief of the whole country. This had been convenient during the war,
still more convenient during negotiations for peace, but it was
inevitable that there should be murmurs now that the cessation from
military operations on a large scale had given men time to look more
deeply into the nature of a constitution partly inherited and partly
improvised, and having many of the defects usually incident to both
sources of government.

The military interest, the ecclesiastical power, and the influence of
foreign nations exerted through diplomatic intrigue, were rapidly
arraying themselves in determined hostility to Barneveld and to what was
deemed his tyrannous usurpation. A little later the national spirit, as
opposed to provincial and municipal patriotism, was to be aroused against
him, and was likely to prove the most formidable of all the elements of
antagonism.

It is not necessary to anticipate here what must be developed on a
subsequent page. This much, however, it is well to indicate for the
correct understanding of passing events. Barneveld did not consider
himself the officer or servant of their High Mightinesses the
States-General, while in reality often acting as their master, but the
vassal and obedient functionary of their Great Mightinesses the States of
Holland, whom he almost absolutely controlled.

His present most pressing business was to resist the encroachments of the
sacerdotal power and to defend the magistracy. The casuistical questions
which were fast maddening the public mind seemed