wers--thereby giving those "filthy rascals," his opponents, a
triumph, and "doing so great an injury to the sovereign people, who were
ready to get rid of them all at a single blow, if his Excellency would
but say the word."

He then implored the magnanimous prince to imitate the example of Moses,
Joshua, David, and that of all great emperors and captains, Hebrew,
Greek, and Roman, to come at once to the scene of action, and to smite
his enemies hip and thigh. He also informed his Excellency, that if the
delay should last much longer, he would lose all chance of regaining
power, because the sovereign people had quite made up their mind to
return to the dominion of Spain within three months, if they could not
induce his Excellency to rule over them. In that way at least, if in no
other, they could circumvent those filthy rascals whom they so much
abhorred, and frustrate the designs of Maurice, Hohenlo, and Sir John
Norris, who were represented as occupying the position of the triumvirs
after the death of Julius Caesar.

To place its neck under the yoke of Philip II. and the Inquisition, after
having so handsomely got rid of both, did not seem a sublime
manifestation of sovereignty on the part of the people, and even Deventer
had some misgivings as to the propriety of such a result. "What then will
become of our beautiful churches?" he cried, "What will princes say, what
will the world in general say, what will historians say, about the honour
of the English nation?"

As to the first question, it is probable that the prospect of the
reformed churches would not have been cheerful, had the inquisition been
re-established in Holland and Utrecht, three months after that date. As
to the second, the world and history were likely to reply, that the
honour of the English nation was fortunately not entirely, entrusted at
that epoch to the "magnanimous prince" of Leicester, and his democratic,
counsellor-in-chief, burgomaster Deventer.

These are but samples of the ravings which sounded incessantly in the
ears of the governor-general. Was it strange that a man, so thirsty for
power, so gluttonous of flattery, should be influenced by such passionate
appeals? Addressed in strains of fulsome adulation, convinced that
arbitrary power was within his reach, and assured that he had but to wink
his eye to see his enemies scattered before him, he became impatient of
all restraint; and determined, on his return, to crush the States into