people of the
provinces were growing very lukewarm in regard to peace, that Prince
Maurice opposed it, that many persons regretted the length to which the
negotiations had already gone. Difficult as it seemed to be to recede,
the archdukes might be certain that a complete rupture was imminent.

All these private conversations of Barneveld, who was known to be the
chief of the peace party, were duly reported by Verreyken in secret notes
to the archduke and to Spinola. Of course they produced their effect. It
surely might have been seen that the tricks and shifts of an antiquated
diplomacy were entirely out of place if any wholesome result were
desired. But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate. That the man who
cannot dissemble is unfit to reign, was perhaps the only one of his
father's golden rules which Philip III. could thoroughly comprehend, even
if it be assumed that the monarch was at all consulted in regard to this
most important transaction of his life. Verreyken and the friar knew very
well when they brought the document that it would be spurned by the
States, and yet they were also thoroughly aware that it was the king's
interest to, begin the negotiations as soon as possible. When thus
privately and solemnly assured by the Advocate that they were really
wasting their time by being the bearers of these royal evasions, they
learned therefore nothing positively new, but were able to assure their
employers that to thoroughly disgust the peace party was not precisely
the mode of terminating the war.

Verreyken now received public and formal notification that a new
instrument must be procured from the king. In the ratification which had
been sent, that monarch spoke of the archdukes as princes and sovereign
proprietors of all the Netherlands. The clause by which, according to the
form prescribed by the States, and already adopted by the archdukes, the
United Provinces were described as free countries over which no authority
was claimed had been calmly omitted, as if, by such a subterfuge, the
independence of the republic could be winked out of existence.
Furthermore, it was objected that the document was in Spanish, that it
was upon paper instead of parchment, that it was not sealed with the
great, but with the little seal, and that it was subscribed.

"I the King." This signature might be very appropriate for decrees issued
by a monarch to his vassals, but could not be rightly appended, it was
urged, to an i