For those who have studied the character and
history of the man, a defence against such slander is superfluous.
Matthias was but the shadow, Orange the substance. The Archduke had been
accepted only to obviate the evil effects of a political intrigue, and
with the express condition that the Prince should be his
lieutenant-general in name, his master in fact. Directly after his
departure in the following year, the Prince's authority, which nominally
departed also, was re-established in his own person, and by express act
of the states-general.

The Union of Utrecht was the foundation-stone of the Netherland Republic;
but the framers of the confederacy did not intend the establishment of a
Republic, or of an independent commonwealth of any kind. They had not
forsworn the Spanish monarch. It was not yet their intention to forswear
him. Certainly the act of union contained no allusion to such an
important step. On the contrary, in the brief preamble they expressly
stated their intention to strengthen the Ghent Pacification, and the
Ghent Pacification acknowledged obedience to the King. They intended no
political innovation of any kind. They expressly accepted matters as they
were. All statutes, charters, and privileges of provinces, cities, or
corporations were to remain untouched. They intended to form neither an
independent state nor an independent federal system. No doubt the formal
renunciation of allegiance, which was to follow within two years, was
contemplated by many as a future probability; but it could not be
foreseen with certainty.

The simple act of union was not regarded as the constitution of a
commonwealth. Its object was a single one--defence against a foreign
oppressor. The contracting parties bound themselves together to spend all
their treasure and all their blood in expelling the foreign soldiery from
their soil. To accomplish this purpose, they carefully abstained from
intermeddling with internal politics and with religion. Every man was to
worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. Every
combination of citizens, from the provincial states down to the humblest
rhetoric club, was to retain its ancient constitution. The establishment
of a Republic, which lasted two centuries, which threw a girdle of rich
dependencies entirely round the globe, and which attained so remarkable a
height of commercial prosperity and political influence, was the result
of the Utrecht Union; but, it was not a pr