rief of all this people; which foresee that there can come no good of
it. Specially Count Hollock, who hath been drunk almost a fortnight
together."

Leicester had rendered himself unpopular with the States-General, and
with all the leading politicians and generals; yet, at that moment, he
had deeply mortgaged his English estates in order to raise
funds to expend in the Netherland cause. Thirty thousand pounds
sterling--according to his own statement--he was already out of pocket,
and, unless the Queen would advance him the means to redeem his property;
his broad lands were to be brought to the hammer. But it was the Queen,
not the States-General, who owed the money; for the Earl had advanced
these sums as a portion of the royal contingent. Five hundred and sixty
thousand pounds sterling had been the cost of one year's war during the
English governor's administration; and of this sum one hundred and forty
thousand had been paid by England. There was a portion of the sum, over
and above their monthly levies; for which the States had contracted a
debt, and they were extremely desirous to obtain, at that moment, an
additional loan of fifty thousand pounds from Elizabeth; a favour
which--Elizabeth was very firmly determined not to grant. It was this
terror at the expense into which the Netherland war was plunging her,
which made the English sovereign so desirous for peace, and filled the
anxious mind of Walsingham with the most painful forebodings.

Leicester, in spite of his good qualities--such as they were--had not
that most necessary gift for a man in his position, the art of making
friends. No man made so many enemies. He was an excellent hater, and few
men have been more cordially hated in return. He was imperious, insolent,
hot-tempered. He could brook no equal. He had also the fatal defect of
enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station. Adroit intriguers
burned incense to him as a god, and employed him as their tool. And now
he had mortally offended Hohenlo, and Buys, and Barneveld, while he hated
Sir John Norris with a most passionate hatred. Wilkes, the English
representative, was already a special object of his aversion. The
unvarnished statements made by the stiff counsellor, of the expense of
the past year's administration, and the various errors committed, had
inspired Leicester with such ferocious resentment, that the friends of
Wilkes trembled for his life.

["It is generally bruited here," wrote