e the assembly.
Barneveld now informed him that the Dutch fleet would be recalled from
the coast of Spain so soon as the consent of his Catholic Majesty to the
negotiations arrived, but that it would be necessary to confine the
cessation of naval warfare within certain local limits. Both these
conditions were strenuously opposed by the Franciscan, who urged that the
consent of the Spanish king was certain, but that this new proposition to
localize the maritime armistice would prove to be fraught with endless
difficulties and dangers. Barneveld and the States remaining firm,
however, and giving him a formal communication of their decision in
writing, Neyen had nothing for it but to wend his way back rather
malcontent to Brussels.

It needed but a brief deliberation at the court of the archdukes to bring
about the desired arrangement. The desire for an armistice, especially
for a cessation of hostilities by sea, had been marvellously stimulated
by an event to be narrated in the next chapter. Meantime, more than the
first three months of the year had been passed in these secret
preliminary transactions, and so softly had the stealthy friar sped to
and fro between Brussels and the Hague, that when at last the armistice
was announced it broke forth like a sudden flash of fine weather in the
midst of a raging storm. No one at the archduke's court knew of the
mysterious negotiations save the monk himself, Spinola, Richardot,
Verreycken, the chief auditor, and one or two others. The great Belgian
nobles, from whom everything had been concealed, were very wroth, but the
Belgian public was as much delighted as amazed at the prospects of peace.
In the United Provinces opinions were conflicting, but doubtless joy and
confidence were the prevailing emotions.

Towards the middle of April the armistice was publicly announced. It was
to last for eight months from the 4th of May. During this period no
citadels were to be besieged, no camps brought near a city, no new
fortifications built, and all troops were to be kept carefully within
walls. Meantime commissioners were to be appointed by the archdukes to
confer with an equal number of deputies of the United Provinces for peace
or for a truce of ten, fifteen, or twenty years, on the express ground
that the archdukes regarded the United Provinces as free countries, over
which their Highnesses pretended to no authority.

The armistice on land was absolute. On sea, hostilities were to ce