will also see that the name of the Emperor is mentioned neither
in the preamble nor the articles of the treaty. It would be contrary to
all our policy since 1610. You may be firmly convinced that malice is
lurking under the Emperor's name, and that he and the King of Spain and
their adherents, now as before, are attempting a sequestration. This is
simply a pretext to bring those principalities and provinces into the
hands of the Spaniards, for which they have been labouring these thirty
years. We are constantly cheated by these Spanish tricks. Their intention
is to hold Wesel and all the other places until the conclusion of the
Italian affair, and then to strike a great blow."

Certainly were never words more full of sound statesmanship, and of
prophecy too soon to be fulfilled, than these simple but pregnant
warnings. They awakened but little response from the English government
save cavils and teasing reminders that Wesel had been the cradle of
German Calvinism, the Rhenish Geneva, and that it was sinful to leave it
longer in the hands of Spain. As if the Advocate had not proved to
demonstration that to stock hands for a new deal at that moment was to
give up the game altogether.

His influence in France was always greater than in England, and this had
likewise been the case with William the Silent. And even now that the
Spanish matrimonial alliance was almost a settled matter at the French
court, while with the English king it was but a perpetual will-o'the-wisp
conducting to quagmires ineffable, the government at Paris sustained the
policy of the Advocate with tolerable fidelity, while it was constantly
and most capriciously traversed by James.

Barneveld sighed over these approaching nuptials, but did not yet
despair. "We hope that the Spanish-French marriages," he said, "may be
broken up of themselves; but we fear that if we should attempt to delay
or prevent them authoritatively, or in conjunction with others, the
effort would have the contrary effect."

In this certainly he was doomed to disappointment.

He had already notified the French court of the absolute necessity of the
great points to be insisted upon in the treaty, and there he found more
docility than in London or Newmarket.

All summer he was occupied with this most important matter, uttering
Cassandra-like warnings into ears wilfully deaf. The States had gone as
far as possible in concession. To go farther would be to wreck the great
cause upon