Don John felt more and more convinced, too, that a conspiracy was on foot against his liberty.  There were so many of the one party, and so few of the other, that if he were once fairly “trussed,” he affirmed that not a man among the faithful would dare to budge an inch.  He therefore informed his Majesty that he was secretly meditating a retreat to some place of security; judging very properly that, if he were still his own master, he should be able to exert more influence over those who were still well disposed, than if he should suffer himself to be taken captive.  A suppressed conviction that he could effect nothing, except with his sword, pierced through all his more prudent reflections.  He maintained that, after all, there was no remedy for the body but to cut off the diseased parts at once, and he therefore begged his Majesty for the means of performing the operation handsomely.  The general expressions which he had previously used in favor of broths and mild treatment hardly tallied with the severe amputation thus recommended.  There was, in truth, a constant struggle going on between the fierceness of his inclinations and the shackles which had been imposed upon him.  He already felt entirely out of place, and although he scorned to fly from his post so long as it seemed the post of danger, he was most anxious that the King should grant him his dismissal, so soon as his presence should no longer be imperiously required.  He was sure that the people would never believe in his Majesty’s forgiveness until the man concerning whom they entertained so much suspicion should be removed; for they saw in him only the “thunderbolt of his Majesty’s wrath.”  Orange and England confirmed their suspicions, and sustained their malice.  Should he be compelled, against his will, to remain, he gave warning that he might do something which would be matter of astonishment to everybody.

Meantime, the man in whose hands really lay the question of war and peace, sat at Middelburg, watching the deep current of events as it slowly flowed towards the precipice.  The whole population of Holland and Zealand hung on his words.  In approaching the realms of William the Silent, Don John felt that he had entered a charmed, circle, where the talisman of his own illustrious name lost its power, where his valor was paralyzed, and his sword rusted irrevocably in its sheath.  “The people here,” he wrote, “are bewitched by the Prince of Orange.  They love him, they fear him, and wish to have him for their master.  They inform him of everything, and take no resolution without consulting him.”