secretly enclosed a little
note in the principal despatch to Neyen and Verreyken. In this billet it
was intimated that, notwithstanding the prohibition in regard to
foreigners, the States were willing--it having been proposed that one or
two who were not Netherlanders should be sent--that a single Spaniard,
provided he were not one of the principal military commanders, should
make part of the embassy.

The phraseology had a double meaning. Spinola was certainly the chief
military commander, but he was not a Spaniard. This eminent personage
might be supposed to have thus received permission to come to the
Netherlands, despite all that had been urged by the war-party against the
danger incurred, in case of a renewal of hostilities, by admitting so
clear-sighted an enemy into the heart of the republic. Moreover, the
terms of the secret note would authorize the appointment of another
foreigner--even a Spaniard--while the crafty president Richardot might
creep into the commission, on the ground that, being a Burgundian, he
might fairly call himself a Netherlander.

And all this happened.

Thus, after a whole year of parley, in which the States-General had held
firmly to their original position, while the Spanish Government had crept
up inch by inch, and through countless windings and subterfuges, to the
point on which they might have all stood together at first, and thus have
saved a twelvemonth, it was finally settled that peace conferences should
begin.

Barneveld had carried the day. Maurice and his cousin Lewis William had
uniformly, deliberately, but not factiously, used all their influence
against any negotiations. The prince had all along loudly expressed his
conviction that neither the archdukes nor Spain would ever be brought to
an honourable peace. The most to be expected of them was a truce of
twelve or fifteen years, to which his consent at least should never be
given, and during which cessation of hostilities, should it be accorded,
every imaginable effort would be made to regain by intrigue what the king
had lost by the sword. As for the King of England and his counsellors,
Maurice always denounced them as more Spanish than Spaniards, as doing
their best to put themselves on the most intimate terms with his Catholic
Majesty, and as secretly desirous--insane policy as it seemed--of forcing
the Netherlands back again under the sceptre of that monarch.

He had at first been supported in his position by the