multitudes, those honest Hollanders, cheering and throwing up their caps in honour of the chieftain whose military genius had caused so much disaster to their country.  This uproarious demonstration of welcome on the part of the multitude moved the spleen of many who were old enough to remember the horrors of Spanish warfare within their borders.  “Thus unreflecting, gaping, boorish, are nearly all the common people of these provinces,” said a contemporary, describing the scene, and forgetting that both high and low, according to his own account, made up the mass of spectators on that winter’s day.  Moreover it seems difficult to understand why the Hollanders should not have indulged a legitimate curiosity, and made a holiday on this memorable occasion.  Spinola was not entering their capital in triumph, a Spanish army was not marching—­as it might have done had the course of events been different—­over the protective rivers and marshes of the fatherland, now changed by the exceptional cold into solid highways for invasion.  On the contrary, the arrival of the great enemy within their gates, with the olive-branch instead of the sword in his hand, was a victory not for Spain but for the republic.  It was known throughout the land that he was commissioned by the king and the archdukes to treat for peace with the States-General of the United Provinces as with the representatives of a free and independent nation, utterly beyond any foreign control.

Was not this opening of a cheerful and pacific prospect, after a half century’s fight for liberty, a fair cause for rejoicing?

The Spanish commissioners arrived at the Hoorn bridge, Spinola alighted from his coach, Prince Maurice stepped forward into the road to greet him.  Then the two eminent soldiers, whose names had of late been so familiar in the mouths of men, shook hands and embraced with heroic cordiality, while a mighty shout went up from the multitude around.  It was a stately and dramatic spectacle, that peaceful meeting of the rival leaders in a war which had begun before either of them was born.  The bystanders observed, or thought that they observed, signs of great emotion on the faces of both.  It has also been recorded that each addressed the other in epigrammatic sentences of compliment.  “God is my witness,” Maurice was supposed to have said, “that the arrival of these honourable negotiators is most grateful to me.  Time, whose daughter is truth, will show the faith to be given to my words.”

“This fortunate day,” replied Spinola, “has filled full the measure of my hopes and wishes, and taken from me the faculty of ever wishing for anything again.  I trust in divine clemency that an opportunity may be given to show my gratitude, and to make a fit return for the humanity thus shown me by the most excellent prince that the sun shines upon.”