the interest of the Contra-Remonstrants.

Six nobles of Utrecht were accordingly commissioned to raise the troops.
A week later they had been enlisted, sworn to obey in all things the
States of Utrecht, and to take orders from no one else. Three days later
the States of Utrecht addressed a letter to their Mightinesses the
States-General and to his Excellency the Prince, notifying them that for
the reasons stated in the resolution cited the six companies had been
levied. There seemed in these proceedings to be no thought of mutiny or
rebellion, the province considering itself as acting within its
unquestionable rights as a sovereign state and without any exaggeration
of the imperious circumstances of the case.

Nor did the States-General and the Stadholder at that moment affect to
dispute the rights of Utrecht, nor raise a doubt as to the legality of
the proceedings. The committee sent thither by the States-General, the
Prince, and the council of state in their written answer to the letter of
the Utrecht government declared the reasons given for the enrolment of
the six companies to be insufficient and the measure itself highly
dangerous. They complained, but in very courteous language, that the
soldiers had been levied without giving the least notice thereof to the
general government, without asking its advice, or waiting for any
communication from it, and they reminded the States of Utrecht that they
might always rely upon the States-General and his Excellency, who were
still ready, as they had been seven years before (1610), to protect them
against every enemy and any danger.

The conflict between a single province of the confederacy and the
authority of the general government had thus been brought to a direct
issue; to the test of arms. For, notwithstanding the preamble to the
resolution of the Utrecht Assembly just cited, there could be little
question that the resolve itself was a natural corollary of the famous
"Sharp Resolution," passed by the States of Holland three weeks before.
Utrecht was in arms to prevent, among other things at least, the forcing
upon them by a majority of the States-General of the National Synod to
which they were opposed, the seizure of churches by the
Contra-Remonstrants, and the destruction of life and property by inflamed
mobs.

There is no doubt that Barneveld deeply deplored the issue, but that he
felt himself bound to accept it. The innate absurdity of a constitutional
system u