y, thus left to a provisional government and torn by faction--but
because of the facility with which he might at once seize upon arbitrary
power. He gratified his master by depicting in lively colours the abject
condition into which Barneveld, Maurice, Hohenlo, and similar cowards,
would be thrown by his sudden return.

"If," said he, "the States' members and the counts, every one of them,
are so desperately afraid of the people, even while your Excellency is
afar off, in what trepidation will they be when you are here! God,
reason, the affection of the sovereign people, are on your side. There
needs, in a little commonwealth like ours, but a wink of the eye, the
slightest indication of dissatisfaction on your part, to take away all
their valour from men who are only brave where swords are too short. A
magnanimous prince like yourself should seek at once the place where such
plots are hatching, and you would see the fury of the rebels change at
once to cowardice. There is more than one man here in the Netherlands
that brags of what he will do against the greatest and most highly
endowed prince in England, because he thinks he shall never see him
again, who, at the very first news of your return, my Lord, would think
only of packing his portmanteau, greasing his boots, or, at the very
least, of sneaking back into his hole."

But the sturdy democrat was quite sure that his Excellency, that most
magnanimous prince of England would not desert his faithful
followers--thereby giving those "filthy rascals," his opponents, a
triumph, and "doing so great an injury to the sovereign people, who were
ready to get rid of them all at a single blow, if his Excellency would
but say the word."

He then implored the magnanimous prince to imitate the example of Moses,
Joshua, David, and that of all great emperors and captains, Hebrew,
Greek, and Roman, to come at once to the scene of action, and to smite
his enemies hip and thigh. He also informed his Excellency, that if the
delay should last much longer, he would lose all chance of regaining
power, because the sovereign people had quite made up their mind to
return to the dominion of Spain within three months, if they could not
induce his Excellency to rule over them. In that way at least, if in no
other, they could circumvent those filthy rascals whom they so much
abhorred, and frustrate the designs of Maurice, Hohenlo, and Sir John
Norris, who were represented as occupying the positi