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unfortunate envoys like a whip. So the queen's counsellors and the republican envoys travelled again and again over the well-worn path. On the 29th June, Buckhurst took Olden-Barneveld into his cabinet, and opened his heart to him, not as a servant of her Majesty, he said, but as a private Englishman. He was entirely for peace. Now that peace was offered to her Majesty, a continuance of the war was unrighteous, and the Lord God's blessing could not be upon it. Without God's blessing no resistance could be made by the queen nor by the States to the enemy, who was ten times more powerful than her Majesty in kingdoms, provinces, number of subjects, and money. He had the pope, the emperor, the Dukes of Savoy and Lorraine, and the republic of Genoa, for his allies. He feared that the war might come upon England, and that they might be fated on one single day to win or lose all. The queen possessed no mines, and was obliged to carry on the war by taxing her people. The king had ever-flowing fountains in his mines; the queen nothing but a stagnant pool, which, when all the water was pumped out, must in the end be dry. He concluded, therefore, that as her Majesty had no allies but the Netherlands, peace was best for England, and advisable for the provinces. Arrangements could easily be made to limit the absolute authority of Spain. This highly figurative view of the subject--more becoming to the author of Ferrex and Porrex than to so, experienced a statesman as Sackville had become since his dramatic days--did not much impress Barneveld. He answered that, although the King of Spain was unquestionably very powerful, the Lord God was still stronger; that England and the Netherlands together could maintain the empire of the seas, which was of the utmost importance, especially for England; but that if the republic were to make her submission to Spain, and become incorporate with that power, the control of the seas was lost for ever to England. The Advocate added the unanswerable argument that to admit Philip as sovereign, and then to attempt a limitation of his despotism was a foolish dream. Buckhurst repeated that the republic was the only ally of England, that there was no confidence to be placed by her in any other power, and that for himself, he was, as always, very much the friend of the States. Olden-Barneveld might well have prayed, however, to be delivered from such friends. To thrust one's head into the lion'
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