Thus, after that half century of war, the policy of Spain was still serenely planting itself on the position occupied before the outbreak of the revolt.  The commonwealth, solidly established by a free people, already one of the most energetic and thriving among governments, a recognised member of the great international family, was now gravely expected to purchase from its ancient tyrant the independence which it had long possessed, while the price demanded for the free papers was not only extravagant, but would be disgraceful to an emancipated slave.  Holland was not likely at that turning point in her history, and in the world’s history, to be false to herself and to the great principles of public law.  It was good for the cause of humanity that the republic should reappear at that epoch.  It was wholesome for Europe that there should be just then a plain self-governing people, able to speak homely and important truths.  It was healthy for the moral and political atmosphere—­in those days and in the time to come—­that a fresh breeze from that little sea-born commonwealth should sweep away some of the ancient fog through which a few very feeble and very crooked mortals had so long loomed forth like giants and gods.

To vindicate the laws of nations and of nature; to make a noble effort for reducing to a system—­conforming, at least approximately, to divine reason—­the chaotic elements of war and peace; to recal the great facts that earth, sea, and sky ought to belong to mankind, and not to an accidental and very limited selection of the species was not an unworthy task for a people which had made such unexampled sacrifice for liberty and right.

Accordingly, at the conference on the 15th February, the Spanish commissioners categorically summoned the States to desist entirely from the trade to either India, exactly as before the war.  To enforce this prohibition, they said, was the principal reason why Philip desired peace.  To obtain their freedom was surely well worth renunciation of this traffic; the more so, because their trade with Spain, which was so much shorter and safer, was now to be re-opened.  If they had been able to keep that commerce, it was suggested, they would have never talked about the Indies.  The commissioners added, that this boon had not been conceded to France nor England, by the treaties of Vervins and London, and that the States therefore could not find it strange that it should be refused to them.

The States’ commissioners stoutly replied that commerce was open to all the world, that trade was free by the great law of nature, and that neither France, England, nor the United Provinces, were to receive edicts on this great subject from Spain and Portugal.  It was absurd to circumscribe commercial intercourse at the very moment of exchanging war for peace.  To recognise the liberty of the States upon paper, and to attempt the imposition of servitude in reality, was a manifest contradiction.  The ocean was free to all nations.  It had not been enclosed by Spain with a rail-fence.