Therefore,” continued the minister, “God forbid, Master Escovedo, that you should come hither now; for we should all be lost.  In the English matter, I assure you that his Majesty was extremely anxious that the plan should succeed, either through the Pope, or otherwise.  That puts me in mind,” added Perez, “to say, body of God!  Senor Escovedo! how the devil came you to send that courier to Rome about the English plot without giving me warning?” He then proceeded to state that the papal nuncio in Spain had been much troubled in mind upon the subject, and had sent for him.  “I went,” said Perez, “and after he, had closed the door, and looked through the keyhole to see that there were no listeners, he informed me that he had received intelligence from the Pope as to the demands made by Don John upon his Holiness for bulls, briefs, and money to assist him in his English scheme, and that eighty thousand ducats had already been sent to him in consequence.”  Perez added that the nuncio was very anxious to know how the affair should best be communicated to the King, without prejudice to his Highness.  He had given him the requisite advice, he continued, and had himself subsequently told the King that, no doubt, letters had been written by Don John to his Majesty, communicating these negotiations at Rome, but that probably the despatches had been forgotten.  Thus, giving himself the appearance of having smoothed the matter with the King, Perez concluded with a practical suggestion of much importance—­the necessity, namely, of procuring the assassination of the Prince of Orange as soon as possible.  “Let it never be absent from your mind,” said he, “that a good occasion must be found for finishing Orange, since, besides the service which will thus be rendered to our master, and to the states, it will be worth something to ourselves.

No apology is necessary for laying a somewhat extensive analysis of this secret correspondence before the reader.  If there be any value in the examples of history, certainly few chronicles can furnish a more instructive moral.  Here are a despotic king and his confidential minister laying their heads together in one cabinet; the viceroy of the most important provinces of the realm, with his secretary, deeply conferring in another, not as to the manner of advancing the great interests, moral or material, of the people over whom God has permitted them to rule, but as to the best means of arranging conspiracies against the throne and life of a neighboring sovereign, with the connivance and subsidies of the Pope.  In this scheme, and in this only, the high conspirators are agreed.  In every other respect, mutual suspicion and profound deceit characterize the scene.  The Governor is filled with inexpressible loathing for the whole nation of “drunkards and wineskins” who are at the very moment strewing flowers in his path, and deafening his ears with shouts of welcome; the king, while expressing unbounded confidence in