in a statesman to be greatly
surprised that the inclinations of princes should prevail upon them to
act, in many particulars, without any regard to the political maxims and
interests of their kingdoms.

_De Witt_.--I am ashamed of my error; but the chief cause of it was that,
though I thought very ill, I did not think quite so ill of Charles II.
and his Ministry as they deserved. I imagined, too, that his Parliament
would restrain him from engaging in such a war, or compel him to engage
in our defence if France should attack us. These, I acknowledge, are
excuses, not justifications. When the French marched into Holland and
found it in a condition so unable to resist them, my fame as a Minister
irrecoverably sank; for, not to appear a traitor, I was obliged to
confess myself a dupe. But what praise is sufficient for the wisdom and
virtue you showed in so firmly rejecting the offers which, I have been
informed, were made to you, both by England and France, when first you
appeared in arms at the head of your country, to give you the sovereignty
of the Seven Provinces by the assistance and under the protection of the
two Crowns! Believe me, great prince, had I been living in those times,
and had known the generous answers you made to those offers (which were
repeated more than once during the course of the war), not the most
ancient and devoted servant to your family would have been more your
friend than I. But who could reasonably hope for such moderation, and
such a right sense of glory, in the mind of a young man descended from
kings, whose mother was daughter to Charles I., and whose father had left
him the seducing example of a very different conduct? Happy, indeed, was
the English nation to have such a prince, so nearly allied to their Crown
both in blood and by marriage, whom they might call to be their deliverer
when bigotry and despotism, the two greatest enemies to human society,
had almost overthrown their whole constitution in Church and State!

_William_.--They might have been happy, but were not. As soon as I had
accomplished their deliverance for them, many of them became my most
implacable enemies, and even wished to restore the unforgiving prince
whom they had so unanimously and so justly expelled from his kingdom.
Such levity seems incredible. I could not myself have imagined it
possible, in a nation famed for good sense, if I had not had proofs of it
beyond contradiction. They seemed as much to