the points to be submitted to its decision.
He had small hope of a successful result from it.

The British king gave him infinite distress. As towards France so towards
England the Advocate kept steadily before him the necessity of deferring
to powerful sovereigns whose friendship was necessary to the republic he
served, however misguided, perverse, or incompetent those monarchs might
be.

"I had always hoped," he said, "that his Majesty would have adhered to
his original written advice, that such questions as these ought to be
quietly settled by authority of law and not by ecclesiastical persons,
and I still hope that his Majesty's intention is really to that effect,
although he speaks of synods."

A month later he felt even more encouraged. "The last letter of his
Majesty concerning our religious questions," he said, "has given rise to
various constructions, but the best advised, who have peace and unity at
heart, understand the King's intention to be to conserve the state of
these Provinces and the religion in its purity. My hope is that his
Majesty's good opinion will be followed and adopted according to the most
appropriate methods."

Can it be believed that the statesman whose upright patriotism,
moderation, and nobleness of purpose thus breathed through every word
spoken by him in public or whispered to friends was already held up by a
herd of ravening slanderers to obloquy as a traitor and a tyrant?

He was growing old and had suffered much from illness during this
eventful summer, but his anxiety for the Commonwealth, caused by these
distressing and superfluous squabbles, were wearing into him more deeply
than years or disease could do.

"Owing to my weakness and old age I can't go up-stairs as well as I
used," he said,--[Barneveld to Caron 31 July and 21 Aug. 1617. (H. Arch.
MS.)]--"and these religious dissensions cause me sometimes such
disturbance of mind as will ere long become intolerable, because of my
indisposition and because of the cry of my heart at the course people are
pursuing here. I reflect that at the time of Duke Casimir and the Prince
of Chimay exactly such a course was held in Flanders and in Lord
Leicester's time in the city of Utrecht, as is best known to yourself. My
hope is fixed on the Lord God Almighty, and that He will make those well
ashamed who are laying anything to heart save his honour and glory and
the welfare of our country with maintenance of its freedom and laws. I
mean