out
doubt, by which its existence was menaced.

The ambassador however begged the Hollander to renounce any such hopes,
assuring him that the king had no intention of publicly and singly taking
upon his shoulders the whole burden of war with Spain, the fruits of
which would not be his to gather. Certainly before there had been time
thoroughly to study the character and inclinations of the British monarch
it would be impossible for De Rosny to hold out any encouragement in this
regard. He then asked Barneveld what he had been able to discover during
his residence in London as to the personal sentiments of James.

The Advocate replied that at first the king, yielding to his own natural
tendencies, and to the advice of his counsellors, had refused the Dutch
deputies every hope, but that subsequently reflecting, as it would seem,
that peace would cost England very dear if English inaction should cause
the Hollanders to fall again under the dominion of the Catholic king, or
to find their only deliverance in the protection of France, and beginning
to feel more acutely how much England had herself to fear from a power
like Spain, he had seemed to awake out of a profound sleep, and promised
to take these important affairs into consideration.

Subsequently he had fallen into a dreary abyss of indecision, where he
still remained. It was certain however that he would form no resolution
without the concurrence of the King of France, whose ambassador he had
been so impatiently expecting, and whose proposition to him of a double
marriage between their respective children had given him much
satisfaction.

De Rosny felt sure that the Dutch statesmen were far too adroit to put
entire confidence in anything said by James, whether favourable or
detrimental to their cause. He conjured Barneveld therefore, by the
welfare of his country, to conceal nothing from him in regard to the most
secret resolutions that might have been taken by the States in the event
of their being abandoned by England, or in case of their being
embarrassed by a sudden demand on the part of that power for the
cautionary towns offered to Elizabeth.

Barneveld, thus pressed, and considering the ambassador as the
confidential counsellor of a sovereign who was the republic's only
friend, no longer hesitated. Making a merit to himself of imparting an
important secret, he said that the state-council of the commonwealth had
resolved to elude at any cost the restoration