It would be superfluous to repeat the arguments by which Caron
endeavoured to set forth that the English troops, sent to the Netherlands
according to a special compact, for a special service, and for a special
consideration and equivalent, could not honestly be employed, contrary to
the wishes of the States-General, upon a totally different service and in
another country. The queen willed it, he was informed, and it was
ill-treatment of her Majesty on the part of the Hollanders to oppose her
will. This argument was unanswerable.

Soon afterwards, Caron was admitted to the presence of Elizabeth. He
delivered, at first, a letter from the States-General, touching the
withdrawal of the troops. The queen, instantly broke the seal and read
the letter to the end. Coming to the concluding passage, in which the
States observed that they had great and just cause highly to complain on
that subject, she paused, reading the sentences over twice or thrice, and
then remarked:

"Truly these are comical people. I have so often been complaining that
they refused to send my troops, and now the States complain that they are
obliged to let them go. Yet my intention is only to borrow them for a
little while, because I can give my brother of France no better succour
than by sending him these soldiers, and this I consider better than if I
should send him four thousand men. I say again, I am only borrowing them,
and surely the States ought never to make such complaints, when the
occasion was such a favourable one, and they had received already
sufficient aid from these troops, and had liberated their whole country.
I don't comprehend these grievances. They complain that I withdraw my
people, and meantime they are still holding them and have brought them
ashore again. They send me frivolous excuses that the skippers don't know
the road to my islands, which is, after all, as easy to find as the way
to Caen, for it is all one. I have also sent my own pilots; and I
complain bitterly that by making this difficulty they will cause the loss
of all Brittany. They run with their people far away from me, and
meantime they allow the enemy to become master of all the coasts lying
opposite me. But if it goes badly with me they will rue it deeply
themselves."

There was considerable reason, even if there were but little justice, in
this strain of remarks. Her Majesty continued it for some little time
longer, and it is interesting to see the direct and per