n alone, but to friendly powers.

Yet the government of Great Britain affected to regard them as something
less than a sovereign state. Although Elizabeth had refused the
sovereignty once proffered to her, although James had united with Henry
IV. in guaranteeing the treaty just concluded between the States and
Spain, that monarch had the wonderful conception that the Republic was in
some sort a province of his own, because he still held the cautionary
towns in pledge for the loans granted by his predecessor. His agents at
Constantinople were instructed to represent the new state as unworthy to
accredit its envoys as those of an independent power. The Provinces were
represented as a collection of audacious rebels, a piratical scum of the
sea. But the Sultan knew his interests better than to incur the enmity of
this rising maritime power. The Dutch envoy declaring that he would
sooner throw himself into the Bosphorus than remain to be treated with
less consideration than that accorded to the ministers of all great
powers, the remonstrances of envious colleagues were hushed, and Haga was
received with all due honours.

Even at the court of the best friend of the Republic, the French king,
men looked coldly at the upstart commonwealth. Francis Aerssens, the keen
and accomplished minister of the States, resident in Paris for many
years, was received as ambassador after the truce with all the ceremonial
befitting the highest rank in the diplomatic service; yet Henry could not
yet persuade himself to look upon the power accrediting him as a
thoroughly organized commonwealth.

The English ambassador asked the King if he meant to continue his aid and
assistance to the States during the truce. "Yes," answered Henry.

"And a few years beyond it?"

"No. I do not wish to offend the King of Spain from mere gaiety of
heart."

"But they are free," replied the Ambassador; "the King of Spain could
have no cause for offence."

"They are free," said the King, "but not sovereign."--"Judge then," wrote
Aerssens to Barneveld, "how we shall be with the King of Spain at the end
of our term when our best friends make this distinction among themselves
to our disadvantage. They insist on making a difference between liberty
and sovereignty; considering liberty as a mean term between servitude and
sovereignty."

"You would do well," continued the Dutch ambassador, "to use the word
'sovereignty' on all occasions instead of 'liberty.'" The hi