The monk now became urgent to accompany his friend to the Hague, but this had been expressly forbidden by the States.  Neyen felt sure, he said, of being able by arguments, which he could present by word of mouth, to overcome the opposition to the armistice were he once more to be admitted to the assembly.  Van der Does had already much overstaid his appointed time, bound to the spot, as it were, by the golden chain thrown around him by the excellent friar, and he now, in violation of orders, wrote to the Hague for leave to comply with this request.  Pending the answer, the persuasive Neyen convinced him, much against his will, that they might both go together as far as Delft.  To Delft they accordingly went; but, within half a league of that place, met a courier with strict orders that the monk was at once to return to Brussels.  Brother John was in great agitation.  Should he go back, the whole negotiation might come to nought; should he go on, he might be clapped into prison as a spy.  Being conscious, however, that his services as a spy were intended to be the most valuable part of his mission, he resolved to proceed in that capacity.  So he persuaded his friend Dirk to hide him in the hold of a canal-boat.  Van der Does was in great trepidation himself, but on reaching the Hague and giving up his gold chain to Barneveld, he made his peace, and obtained leave for the trembling but audacious friar to come out of his hiding-place.

Appearing once more before the States-General on the afternoon of 7th May, Neyen urged with much eloquence the propriety of an immediate armistice both by sea and land, insisting that it would be a sanguinary farce to establish a cessation of hostilities upon one element while blood and treasure were profusely flowing on the oceans.  There were potent reasons for this earnestness on the part of the monk to procure a truce to maritime operations, as very soon was to be made evident to the world.  Meantime, on this renewed visit, the negotiator expressed himself as no longer doubtful in regard to the propriety of requesting the Spanish king’s consent to the proposed negotiations.  That consent, however, would in his opinion depend upon the earnestness now to be manifested by the States in establishing the armistice by sea and land, and upon their promptness in recalling the fleets now infesting the coast of Spain.  No immediate answer was given to these representations, but Neyen was requested to draw up his argument in writing, in order that it might be duly pondered by the States of the separate provinces.

The radical defect of the Dutch constitution—­the independent sovereignty claimed by each one of the provinces composing the confederation, each of those provinces on its part being composed of cities, each again claiming something very like sovereignty for itself—­could not fail to be manifested whenever, great negotiations with foreign powers were to be undertaken.  To obtain the unanimous consent