s of caution.

"The States of Holland and Zealand will be opposed to the plan," it said.
"If the treaty come to the knowledge of the States and Council of Holland
before it has been acted upon by the five frontier provinces the whole
plan will be demolished."

Such was the opinion entertained by Philip himself of the man who was
supposed to be his stipendiary. I am not aware that this paper has ever
been alluded to in any document or treatise private or public from the
day of its date to this hour. It certainly has never been published, but
it lies deciphered in the Archives of the Kingdom at Brussels, and is
alone sufficient to put to shame the slanderers of the Advocate's
loyalty.

Yet let it be remembered that in this very summer exactly at the moment
when these intrigues were going on between the King of Spain and the
class of men most opposed to Barneveld, the accusations against his
fidelity were loudest and rifest.

Before the Stadholder had so suddenly slipped down to Brielle in order to
secure that important stronghold for the Contra-Remonstrant party,
reports had been carefully strewn among the people that the Advocate was
about to deliver that place and other fortresses to Spain.

Brielle, Flushing, Rammekens, the very cautionary towns and keys to the
country which he had so recently and in such masterly manner delivered
from the grasp of the hereditary ally he was now about to surrender to
the ancient enemy.

The Spaniards were already on the sea, it was said. Had it not been for
his Excellency's watchfulness and promptitude, they would already under
guidance of Barneveld and his crew have mastered the city of Brielle.
Flushing too through Barneveld's advice and connivance was open at a
particular point, in order that the Spaniards, who had their eye upon it,
might conveniently enter and take possession of the place. The air was
full of wild rumours to this effect, and already the humbler classes who
sided with the Stadholder saw in him the saviour of the country from the
treason of the Advocate and the renewed tyranny of Spain.

The Prince made no such pretence, but simply took possession of the
fortress in order to be beforehand with the Waartgelders. The
Contra-Remonstrants in Brielle had desired that "men should see who had
the hardest fists," and it would certainly have been difficult to find
harder ones than those of the hero of Nieuwpoort.

Besides the Jesuits coming in so skilfully to triump