Nothing could exceed the disappointment and irritation of the Prince of Orange consequent on this transaction.  He at first threatened, then negotiated, and finally patched up the matter in a mariner the least mortifying to his wounded pride.  Bikker nobly offered himself for a peace-offering, and voluntarily resigned his employments in the city he had saved; and De Witt and his officers were released.  William was in some measure consoled for his disgrace by the condolence of the army, the thanks of the province of Zealand, and a new treaty with France, strengthened by promises of future support from Cardinal Mazarin; but, before he could profit by these encouraging symptoms, domestic and foreign, a premature death cut short all his projects of ambition.  Over-violent exercise in a shooting party in Guelders brought on a fever, which soon terminated in an attack of smallpox.  On the first appearance of his illness, he was removed to The Hague; and he died there on the 6th of November, 1650, aged twenty-four years and six months.

The death of this prince left the state without a stadtholder, and the army without a chief.  The whole of Europe shared more or less in the joy or the regret it caused.  The republican party, both in Holland and in England, rejoiced in a circumstance which threw back the sovereign power into the hands of the nation; the partisans of the House of Orange deeply lamented the event.  But the birth of a son, of which the widowed princess of Orange was delivered within a week of her husbands death, revived the hopes of those who mourned his loss, and offered her the only consolation which could assuage her grief.  This child was, however, the innocent cause of a breach between his mother and grandmother, the dowager-princess, who had never been cordially attached to each other.  Each claimed the guardianship of the young prince; and the dispute was at length decided by the states, who adjudged the important office to the elector of Brandenburg and the two princesses jointly.  The states of Holland soon exercised their influence on the other provinces.  Many of the prerogatives of the stadtholder were now assumed by the people; and, with the exception of Zealand, which made an ineffectual attempt to name the infant prince to the dignity of his ancestors under the title of William III., a perfect unanimity seemed to have reconciled all opposing interests.  The various towns secured the privileges of appointing their own magistrates, and the direction of the army and navy devolved to the states-general.

The time was now arrived when the wisdom, the courage, and the resources of the republic were to be put once more to the test, in a contest hitherto without example, and never since equalled in its nature.  The naval wars between Holland and England had their real source in the inveterate jealousies and unbounded ambition of both countries, reciprocally convinced that a joint supremacy at sea was incompatible with their interests