feeling in the States, made repeated incursions
into the provinces, which were now united but in title, not in
spirit. Spinola was once more in the field, and had invested the
important town of Breda, which was the patrimonial inheritance
of the princes of Orange. Maurice was oppressed with anxiety
and regret; and, for the sake of his better feelings, it may be
hoped, with remorse. He could effect nothing against his rival;
and he saw his own laurels withering from his careworn brow. The
only hope left of obtaining the so much wanted supplies of money
was in the completion of a new treaty with France and England.
Cardinal Richelieu, desirous of setting bounds to the ambition
and the successes of the House of Austria, readily came into
the views of the States; and an obligation for a loan of one
million two hundred thousand livres during the year 1624, and one
million more for each of the two succeeding years, was granted
by the king of France, on condition that the republic made no
new truce with Spain without his mediation.

An alliance nearly similar was at the same time concluded with
England. Perpetual quarrels on commercial questions loosened
the ties which bound the States to their ancient allies. The
failure of his son's intended marriage with the infanta of Spain
had opened the eyes of King James to the way in which he was
despised by those who seemed so much to respect him. He was highly
indignant; and he undertook to revenge himself by aiding the
republic. He agreed to furnish six thousand men, and supply the
funds for their pay, with a provision for repayment by the States
at the conclusion of a peace with Spain.

Prince Maurice had no opportunity of reaping the expected advantages
from these treaties. Baffled in all his efforts for relieving
Breda, and being unsuccessful in a new attempt upon Antwerp,
he returned to The Hague, where a lingering illness, that had
for some time exhausted him, terminated in his death on the 23d
of April, 1625, in his fifty-ninth year. Most writers attribute
this event to agitation at being unable to relieve Breda from
the attack of Spinola. It is in any case absurd to suppose that
the loss of a single town could have produced so fatal an effect
on one whose life had been an almost continual game of the chances
of war. But cause enough for Maurice's death may be found in the
wearing effects of thirty years of active military service, and
the more wasting ravages of half as m