Don John made answers to these propositions by adding a brief comment, as apostille, upon each of the eighteen articles, in succession.  He would send away the troops, but, at the same time, the states must disband their own.  He declined engaging himself not to recal his foreign soldiery, should necessity require their service.  With regard to the Ghent Pacification, he professed himself ready for a general peace negotiation, on condition that the supremacy of the Catholic Church and the authority of his Majesty were properly secured.  He would settle upon some act of amnesty after due consultation with the State Council.  He was willing that the states should be convoked in general assembly, provided sufficient security were given him that nothing should be there transacted prejudicial to the Catholic religion and the King’s sovereignty.  As for their privileges, he would govern as had been done in the time of his imperial father.  He expressed his satisfaction with most of the promises offered by the estates, particularly with their expression in favor of the Church and of his Majesty’s authority; the two all-important points to secure which he had come thither unattended, at the peril of his life, but he received their offer of a body-guard, by which his hirelings were to be superseded, with very little gratitude.  He was on the point, he said, of advancing as far as Marche en Famine, and should take with him as strong a guard as he considered necessary, and composed of such troops as he had at hand.  Nothing decisive came of this first interview.  The parties had taken the measures of their mutual claims, and after a few days, fencing with apostilles, replies, and rejoinders, they separated, their acrimony rather inflamed than appeased.

The departure of the troops and the Ghent treaty were the vital points in the negotiation.  The estates had originally been content that the troops should go by sea.  Their suspicions were, however, excited by the pertinacity with which Don John held to this mode of removal.  Although they did not suspect the mysterious invasion of England, a project which was the real reason why the Governor objected to their departure by land, yet they soon became aware—­that he had been secretly tampering with the troops at every point.  The effect of these secret negotiations with the leading officers of the army was a general expression of their unwillingness, on account of the lateness of the season, the difficult and dangerous condition of the roads and mountain-passes, the plague in Italy, and other pretexts, to undertake so long a journey by land.  On the other hand, the states, seeing the anxiety and the duplicity of Don John upon this particular point, came to the resolution to thwart him at all hazards, and insisted on the land journey.  Too long a time, too much money, too many ships would be necessary, they said, to forward so large a force by sea, and in the meantime it would be necessary to permit them to live for another indefinite period at the charge of the estates.