and forget past offences —­and to release all prisoners.  On the other hand he required the estates to pay the troops before their departure, and to provide ships enough to transport them, as the Spaniards did not choose to go by land, and as the deputies, at Luxemburg had consented to their removal by sea.  Furthermore, he demanded that the states should dismiss their own troops.  He required ecclesiastical authority to prove the Ghent Pacification not prejudicial to the Catholic religion; legal authority that it was not detrimental to his Majesty’s supremacy; and an oath from the states-general to uphold both points inviolably, and to provide for their maintenance in Holland and Zealand.  He claimed the right to employ about his person soldiers and civil functionaries of any nation he might choose, and he exacted from the states a promise to prevent the Prince of Orange from removing his son, Count van Buren, forcibly or fraudulently, from his domicile in Spain.

The deputies were naturally indignant at this elaborate trifling.  They had, in reality, asked him but one question, and that a simple one—­Would he maintain the treaty of Ghent?  Here were twenty-seven articles in reply, and yet no answer to that question.  They sat up all night, preparing a violent protocol, by which the Governor’s claims were to be utterly demolished.  Early in the morning, they waited upon his Highness, presented the document, and at the same time asked him plainly, by word of mouth, did he or did he not intend to uphold the treaty.  Thus pressed into a corner in presence of the deputies, the members of the State Council who were in attendance from Brussels, and the envoys whom the Emperor had recently sent to assist at these deliberations, the Governor answered, No.  He would not and could not maintain the treaty, because the Spanish troops were in that instrument denounced as rebels, because he would not consent to the release of Count Van Buren—­and on account of various other reasons not then specified.  Hereupon ensued a fierce debate, and all day long the altercation lasted, without a result being reached.  At ten o’clock in the evening, the deputies having previously retired for a brief interval, returned with a protest that they were not to be held responsible for the, termination of the proceedings, and that they washed their hands of the bloodshed which might follow the rupture.  Upon reading this document; Don John fell into a blazing passion.  He vehemently denounced the deputies as traitors.  He swore that men who came to him thus prepared with ready-made protests in their pockets, were rebels from the commencement, and had never intended any agreement with him.  His language and gestures expressed unbounded fury.  He was weary of their ways, he said.  They had better look to themselves, for the King would never leave their rebellion unpunished.  He was ready to draw the sword at once—­not his own, but his Majesty’s, and they might be sure that