oluntarily a
rebel should he accept the crown now offered him. Had the news arrived
sooner, a different result and even a different history might have been
possible.

CHAPTER XIV.

Barneveld connected with the East India Company, but opposed to the West
India Company--Carleton comes from Venice inimical to Barneveld--Maurice
openly the Chieftain of the Contra-Remonstrants--Tumults about the
Churches--"Orange or Spain" the Cry of Prince Maurice and his Party--They
take possession of the Cloister Church--"The Sharp Resolve"--Carleton's
Orations before the States-General.

King James never forgave Barneveld for drawing from him those famous
letters to the States in which he was made to approve the Five Points and
to admit the possibility of salvation under them. These epistles had
brought much ridicule upon James, who was not amused by finding his
theological discussions a laughing-stock. He was still more incensed by
the biting criticisms made upon the cheap surrender of the cautionary
towns, and he hated more than ever the statesman who, as he believed, had
twice outwitted him.

On the other hand, Maurice, inspired by his brother-in-law the Duke of
Bouillon and by the infuriated Francis Aerssens, abhorred Barneveld's
French policy, which was freely denounced by the French Calvinists and by
the whole orthodox church. In Holland he was still warmly sustained
except in the Contra-Remonstrant Amsterdam and a few other cities of less
importance. But there were perhaps deeper reasons for the Advocate's
unpopularity in the great commercial metropolis than theological
pretexts. Barneveld's name and interests were identified with the great
East India Company, which was now powerful and prosperous beyond anything
ever dreamt of before in the annals of commerce. That trading company had
already founded an empire in the East. Fifty ships of war, fortresses
guarded by 4000 pieces of artillery and 10,000 soldiers and sailors,
obeyed the orders of a dozen private gentlemen at home seated in a back
parlour around a green table. The profits of each trading voyage were
enormous, and the shareholders were growing rich beyond their wildest
imaginings. To no individual so much as to Holland's Advocate was this
unexampled success to be ascribed. The vast prosperity of the East India
Company had inspired others with the ambition to found a similar
enterprise in the West. But to the West India Company then projected and
especially fa