d. Such base coin as this was still circulating in
diplomacy as if fresh from the Machiavellian mint; but the republican
agent ought to have known that his Government had long ago refused to
pass it current.

Soon afterwards this grave matter was discussed at the Hague between
Henry's envoy and Barneveld. It was a very delicate negotiation. The
Advocate wished to secure the assistance of a powerful but most
unscrupulous ally, and at the same time to conceal his real intention to
frustrate the French design upon the independence of the republic.

Disingenuous and artful as his conduct unquestionably was, it may at
least be questioned whether in that age of deceit any other great
statesman would have been more frank. If the comparatively weak
commonwealth, by openly and scornfully refusing all the insidious and
selfish propositions of the French king, had incurred that monarch's
wrath, it would have taken a noble position no doubt, but it would have
perhaps been utterly destroyed. The Advocate considered himself justified
in using the artifices of war against a subtle and dangerous enemy who
wore the mask of a friend. When the price demanded for military
protection was the voluntary abandonment of national independence in
favour of the protector, the man who guided the affairs of the
Netherlands did not hesitate to humour and to outwit the king who strove
to subjugate the republic. At the same time--however one may be disposed
to censure the dissimulation from the standing-ground of a lofty
morality--it should not be forgotten that Barneveld never hinted at any
possible connivance on his part with an infraction of the laws. Whatever
might be the result of time, of persuasion, of policy, he never led Henry
or his ministers to believe that the people of the Netherlands could be
deprived of their liberty by force or fraud. He was willing to play a
political game, in which he felt himself inferior to no man, trusting to
his own skill and coolness for success. If the tyrant were defeated, and
at the same time made to serve the cause of the free commonwealth, the
Advocate believed this to be fair play.

Knowing himself surrounded by gamblers and tricksters, he probably did
not consider himself to be cheating because he did not play his cards
upon the table.

So when Buzanval informed him early in October that the possession of
Sluys and other Flemish towns would not be sufficient for the king, but
that they must offer the s