y-Letter" and
the "Compromise," granting full right of religious worship to the
Protestants of the Kingdom of Bohemia. If ever a policy deserved to be
called truly liberal and truly conservative, it was the policy thus
steadily maintained by Barneveld.

Adverting to the subterfuge by which the Catholic party had sought to set
aside the treaty of Xanten, he instructed Langerac, the States'
ambassador in Paris, and his own pupils to make it clear to the French
government that it was impossible that in such arrangements the Spanish
armies would not be back again in the duchies at a moment's notice. It
could not be imagined even that they were acting sincerely.

"If their upright intention," he said, "is that no actual, hostile,
violent attack shall be made upon the duchies, or upon any of the
princes, estates, or cities of the Holy Empire, as is required for the
peace and tranquillity of Christendom, and if all the powers interested
therein will come into a good and solid convention to that effect. My
Lords the States will gladly join in such undertaking and bind themselves
as firmly as the other powers. If no infraction of the laws and liberties
of the Holy Empire be attempted, there will be peace for Germany and its
neighbours. But the present extravagant proposition can only lead to
chicane and quarrels. To press such a measure is merely to inflict a
disgrace upon us. It is an attempt to prevent us from helping the
Elector-Palatine and the other Protestant princes of Germany and
coreligionists everywhere against hostile violence. For the
Elector-Palatine can receive aid from us and from Great Britain through
the duchies only. It is plainly the object of the enemy to seclude us
from the Palatine and the rest of Protestant Germany. It is very
suspicious that the proposition of Prince Maurice, supported by the two
kings and the united princes of Germany, has been rejected."

The Advocate knew well enough that the religious franchises granted by
the House of Habsburg at the very moment in which Spain signed her peace
with the Netherlands, and exactly as the mad duke of Cleve was
expiring--with a dozen princes, Catholic and Protestant, to dispute his
inheritance--would be valuable just so long as they could be maintained
by the united forces of Protestantism and of national independence and no
longer. What had been extorted from the Catholic powers by force would be
retracted by force whenever that force could be concentra