He then gave from the stores of his memory innumerable instances in which soldiers had been enlisted by provinces and cities all over the Netherlands from the time of the abjuration of Spain down to that moment.  Through the whole period of independence in the time of Anjou, Matthias, Leicester, as well as under the actual government, it had been the invariable custom thus to provide both by land and sea and on the rivers against robbers, rebels, pirates, mischief-makers, assailing thieves, domestic or foreign.  It had been done by the immortal William the Silent on many memorable occasions, and in fact the custom was so notorious that soldiers so enlisted were known by different and peculiar nicknames in the different provinces and towns.

That the central government had no right to meddle with religious matters was almost too self-evident an axiom to prove.  Indeed the chief difficulty under which the Advocate laboured throughout this whole process was the monstrous assumption by his judges of a political and judicial system which never had any existence even in imagination.  The profound secrecy which enwrapped the proceedings from that day almost to our own and an ignorant acquiescence of a considerable portion of the public in accomplished facts offer the only explanation of a mystery which must ever excite our wonder.  If there were any impeachment at all, it was an impeachment of the form of government itself.  If language could mean anything whatever, a mere perusal of the Articles of Union proved that the prisoner had never violated that fundamental pact.  How could the general government prescribe an especial formulary for the Reformed Church, and declare opposition to its decrees treasonable, when it did not prohibit, but absolutely admitted and invited, provinces and cities exclusively Catholic to enter the Union, guaranteeing to them entire liberty of religion?

Barneveld recalled the fact that when the stadholdership of Utrecht thirty years before had been conferred on Prince Maurice the States of that province had solemnly reserved for themselves the disposition over religious matters in conformity with the Union, and that Maurice had sworn to support that resolution.

Five years later the Prince had himself assured a deputation from Brabant that the States of each province were supreme in religious matters, no interference the one with the other being justifiable or possible.  In 1602 the States General in letters addressed to the States of the obedient provinces under dominion of the Archdukes had invited them to take up arms to help drive the Spaniards from the Provinces and to join the Confederacy, assuring them that they should regulate the matter of religion at their good pleasure, and that no one else should be allowed to interfere therewith.