On the 23rd of September he was attended by a vast concourse of citizens to the new canal which led to Brussels, where three barges were in waiting for himself and suite.  In one a banquet was spread; in the second, adorned with emblematic devices and draped with the banners of the seventeen provinces, he was to perform the brief journey; while the third had been filled by the inevitable rhetoric societies, with all the wonders of their dramatic and plastic ingenuity.  Rarely had such a complication of vices and virtues, of crushed dragons, victorious archangels, broken fetters, and resurgent nationalities, been seen before, within the limits of a single canal boat.  The affection was, however, sincere, and the spirit noble, even though the taste which presided at these remonstrations may have been somewhat pedantic.

The Prince was met several miles before the gates of Brussels by a procession of nearly half the inhabitants of the city, and thus escorted, he entered the capital in the afternoon of the 23rd of September.  It was the proudest day of his life.  The representatives of all the provinces, supported by the most undeniable fervor of the united Netherland people, greeted “Father William.”  Perplexed, discordant, hating, fearing, doubting, they could believe nothing, respect nothing, love nothing, save the “tranquil” Prince.  His presence at that moment in Brussels was the triumph of the people and of religious toleration.  He meant to make use of the crisis to extend and to secure popular rights, and to establish the supremacy of the states-general under the nominal sovereignty of some Prince, who was yet to be selected, while the executive body was to be a state-council, appointed by the states-general.  So far as appears, he had not decided as to the future protector, but he had resolved that it should be neither himself nor Philip of Spain.  The outlaw came to Brussels prepared at last to trample out a sovereignty which had worked its own forfeiture.  So far as he had made any election within his breast, his choice inclined to the miserable Duke of Anjou; a prince whom he never came to know as posterity has known him, but whom he at least learned to despise.  Thus far the worthless and paltry intriguer still wore the heroic mask, deceiving even such far seeing politicians as Saint Aldegonde and the Prince.

William’s first act was to put a stop to the negotiations already on foot with Don John.  He intended that they should lead to war, because peace was impossible, except a peace for which civil and religious liberty would be bartered, for it was idle, in his opinion, to expect the maintenance by the Spanish Governor of the Ghent Pacification, whatever promises might be extorted from his fears.  A deputation, in the name of the states, had already been sent with fresh propositions to Don John, at Namur.  The envoys were Caspar Schetz and the Bishop of Bruges.  They had nearly come to an amicable convention with