eace,
and of countenancing attempts against his life, and in endeavouring to
persuade you into joining him in a declaration of war against me and
against Holland and Zealand; but I pray you, most affectionately, to
remember our mutual and solemn obligations to maintain the treaty of
Ghent." He entreated the states, therefore, to beware of the artifices
employed to seduce them from the only path which led to the tranquillity
of their common country, and her true splendor and prosperity. "I believe
there is not one of you," he continued, "who can doubt me, if he will
weigh carefully all my actions, and consider closely the course which I
am pursuing and have always pursued. Let all these be confronted with the
conduct of Don John, and any man will perceive that all my views of
happiness, both for my country and myself, imply a peaceable enjoyment of
the union, joined with the legitimate restoration of our liberties, to
which all good patriots aspire, and towards which all my designs have
ever tended. As all the grandeur of Don John, on the contrary, consists
in war, as there is nothing which he so much abhors as repose, as he has
given ample proof of these inclinations in all his designs and
enterprises, both before and after the Treaty of Marche en Famine, both
within the country and beyond its borders, as it is most manifest that
his purpose is, and ever has been, to embroil us with our neighbours of
England and Scotland in new dissensions, as it must be evident to every
one of you that his pretended accusations against me are but colors and
shadows to embellish and to shroud his own desire for war, his appetite
for vengeance, and his hatred not only to me but to yourselves, and as
his determination is, in the words of Escovedo, to chastise some of us by
means of the rest, and to excite the jealousy of one portion of the
country against the other--therefore, gentlemen, do I most affectionately
exhort you to found your decision, as to these matters, not upon words
but upon actions. Examine carefully my conduct in the points concerning
which the charges are made; listen attentively to what my envoys will
communicate to you in my behalf; and then, having compared it with all
the proceedings of Seigneur Don John, you will be able to form a
resolution worthy the rank which you occupy, and befitting your
obligations to the whole people, of whom you have been chosen chiefs and
protectors, by God and by men. Put away all consider