were to do better in the
parts formerly assigned to John Rogers, Valentine Dale, Comptroller
Croft, and their colleagues, remained to be seen.

On the 15th of February, at the fifth conference of the commissioners,
the first pitched battle on the India trade was fought. Thereafter the
combat was almost every day renewed. Exactly, as a year before, the news
of Heemskerk's victory at Gibraltar had made the king and the archdukes
eager to obtain an armistice with the rebels both by land and sea, so now
the report of Matelieff's recent achievements in the Indian ocean was
increasing their anxiety to exclude the Netherlanders from the regions
which they were rapidly making their own.

As we look back upon the negotiations, after the lapse of two centuries
and a half, it becomes difficult to suppress our amazement at those
scenes of solemn trickery and superhuman pride. It is not necessary to
follow, step by step, the proceedings at each daily conference, but it is
impossible for me not to detain the reader for yet a season longer with
those transactions, and especially to invite him to ponder the valuable
lesson which in their entirety they convey.

No higher themes could possibly be laid before statesmen to discuss.
Questions of political self-government, religious liberty, national
independence, divine Right, rebellious Power, freedom of commerce,
supremacy of the seas, omnipotence claimed by the old world over the
destiny of what was called the new, were importunately demanding
solution. All that most influenced human passion, or stirred human reason
to its depths--at that memorable point of time when two great epochs
seemed to be sweeping against each other in elemental conflict--was to be
dealt with. The emancipated currents of human thought, the steady tide of
ancient dogma, were mingling in wrath. There are times of paroxysm in
which Nature seems to effect more in a moment, whether intellectually or
materially, than at other periods during a lapse of years. The shock of
forces, long preparing and long delayed, is apt at last to make itself
sensible to those neglectful of gradual but vital changes. Yet there are
always ears that are deaf to the most portentous din.

Thus, after that half century of war, the policy of Spain was still
serenely planting itself on the position occupied before the outbreak of
the revolt. The commonwealth, solidly established by a free people,
already one of the most energetic and thrivi