Yet it would be unjust to the prince, whose patriotism was as pure and unsullied as his sword, to confound his motives with his end.  He was firmly convinced that liberty of religious worship, to be acquired during the truce, would inevitably cause the United Provinces to fall once more under the Spanish yoke.  The French ambassador, with whom he conferred every day, never doubted his sincerity.  Gelderland, Friesland, Overyssel, Groningen, and Utrecht, five provinces out of the united seven, the prince declared to be chiefly inhabited by Catholics.  They had only entered the union, he said, because compelled by force.  They could only be kept in the union by force, unless allowed freedom of religion.  His inference from such a lamentable state of affairs was, not that the experiment of religious worship should be tried, but that the garrisons throughout the five provinces ought to be redoubled, and the war with Spain indefinitely waged.  The President was likewise of opinion that “a revolt of these five provinces against the union might be at any moment expected, ill disposed as they were to recognise a sovereignty which abolished their religion.”  Being himself a Catholic, however, it was not unnatural that he should make a different deduction from that of the prince, and warmly recommend, not more garrisons, but more liberty of worship.

Thus the very men who were ready to dare all, and to sacrifice all in behalf of their country, really believed themselves providing for the imperishable security of the commonwealth by placing it on the narrow basis of religious intolerance.

Maurice, not satisfied with making these vehement arguments against the truce in his conferences with the envoys of the French and British sovereigns, employed the brief interval yet to elapse before definitely breaking off or resuming the conferences with the Spanish commissioners in making vigorous appeals to the country.

“The weal or woe of the United Provinces for all time,” he said, “is depending on the present transactions.”  Weigh well the reasons we urge, and make use of those which seem to you convincing.  You know that the foe, according to his old deceitful manner, laid down very specious conditions at the beginning, in order to induce my lords the States-General to treat.

“If the king and the archdudes sincerely mean to relinquish absolutely their pretensions to these provinces, they can certainly have no difficulty in finding honest and convenient words to express their intention.  As they are seeking other phrases than the usual and straightforward ones, they give certain proof that they mean to keep back from us the substance.  They are trying to cheat us with dark, dubious, loosely-screwed terms, which secure nothing and bind to nothing.  If it be wise to trust the welfare of our State to ambiguous words, you can judge according to your own discretion.

“Recognition of our sovereignty is the foundation-stone of these negotiations.