her.  The histories of England, she said, should never describe her as guilty of such falsehood.  She could find a more honourable and fitting means of making peace than by delivering up cities and strongholds so sincerely and confidingly placed in her hands.  She hoped to restore them as faithfully as they had loyally been entrusted to her keeping.  She begged Caron to acquaint the States-General with these asseverations; declaring that never since she had sent troops to the Netherlands had she lent her ear to those who had made such underhand propositions.  She was aware that Cardinal Albert had propositions to make, and that he was desirous of inducing both the French king and, herself to consent to a peace with Spain:  but she promised, the States’ envoy solemnly before God to apprise him of any such overtures, so soon as they should be made known to herself.

Much more in this strain, with her usual vehemence and mighty oaths, did the great queen aver, and the republican envoy, to whom she was on this occasion very gracious, was fain to believe in her sincerity.  Yet the remembrance of the amazing negotiations between the queen’s ministers and the agents of Alexander Farnese, by which the invasion of the Armada had been masked; could not but have left an uneasy feeling in the mind of every Dutch statesman.  “I trust in God,” said Caron, “that He may never so abandon her as to permit her to do the reverse of what she now protests with so much passion.  Should it be otherwise—­which God forbid—­I should think that He would send such chastisement upon her and her people that other princes would see their fate therein as in a mirror, should they make and break such oaths and promises.  I tell you these things as they occur, because, as I often feel uneasiness myself, I imagine that my friends on the other side the water may be subject to the same anxiety.  Nevertheless, beat the bush as I may, I can obtain no better information than this which I am now sending you.”

It had been agreed that for a time the queen should desist from her demands for repayment—­which, according to the Treaty of 1585, was to be made only after conclusion of peace between Spain and the provinces, but which Elizabeth was frequently urging on the ground that the States could now make that peace when they chose—­and in return for such remission the republic promised to furnish twenty-four ships of war and four tenders for a naval expedition which was now projected against the Spanish coast.  These war-ships were to be of four hundred, three hundred, and two hundred tons-eight of each dimension—­and the estimated expense of their fitting out for five months was 512,796 florins.