urisdiction of the tribunal. The Treaty of Union on which the Assembly
and States-General were founded gave that assembly no power over him.
They could take no legal cognizance of his person or his acts. He had
been deprived of writing materials, or he would have already drawn up his
solemn protest and argument against the existence of the commission. He
demanded that they should be provided for him, together with a clerk to
engross his defence. It is needless to say that the demand was refused.

It was notorious to all men, he said, that on the day when violent hands
were laid upon him he was not bound to the States-General by oath,
allegiance, or commission. He was a well-known inhabitant of the Hague, a
householder there, a vassal of the Commonwealth of Holland, enfeoffed of
many notable estates in that country, serving many honourable offices by
commission from its government. By birth, promotion, and conferred
dignities he was subject to the supreme authority of Holland, which for
forty years had been a free state possessed of all the attributes of
sovereignty, political, religious, judicial, and recognizing no superior
save God Almighty alone.

He was amenable to no tribunal save that of their Mightinesses the States
of Holland and their ordinary judges. Not only those States but the
Prince of Orange as their governor and vassal, the nobles of Holland, the
colleges of justice, the regents of cities, and all other vassals,
magistrates, and officers were by their respective oaths bound to
maintain and protect him in these his rights.

After fortifying this position by legal argument and by an array of
historical facts within his own experience, and alluding to the repeated
instances in which, sorely against his will, he had been solicited and
almost compelled to remain in offices of which he was weary, he referred
with dignity to the record of his past life. From the youthful days when
he had served as a volunteer at his own expense in the perilous sieges of
Haarlem and Leyden down to the time of his arrest, through an unbroken
course of honourable and most arduous political services, embassies, and
great negotiations, he had ever maintained the laws and liberties of the
Fatherland and his own honour unstained.

That he should now in his seventy-second year be dragged, in violation of
every privilege and statute of the country, by extraordinary means,
before unknown judges, was a grave matter not for himself alone