At last yielding to the persuasions and threats of his fierce younger brother, who assured him that the plot would succeed, the government be revolutionized, and that then all property would be at the mercy of the victors, he agreed to endorse certain bills which Korenwinder undertook to negotiate.  Nothing could be meaner, more cowardly, and more murderous than the proceedings of the Seigneur de Groeneveld.  He seems to have felt no intense desire of vengeance upon Maurice, which certainly would not have been unnatural, but he was willing to supply money for his assassination.  At the same time he was careful to insist that this pecuniary advance was by no means a free gift, but only a loan to be repaid by his more bloodthirsty brother upon demand with interest.  With a businesslike caution, in ghastly contrast with the foulness of the contract, he exacted a note of hand from Stoutenburg covering the whole amount of his disbursements.  There might come a time, he thought, when his brother’s paper would be more negotiable than it was at that moment.

Korenwinder found no difficulty in discounting Groeneveld’s bills, and the necessary capital was thus raised for the vile enterprise.  Van Dyk, the lean and hungry conspirator, now occupied himself vigorously in engaging the assassins, while his corpulent colleague remained as treasurer of the company.  Two brothers Blansaerts, woollen manufacturers at Leyden—­one of whom had been a student of theology in the Remonstrant Church and had occasionally preached—­and a certain William Party, a Walloon by birth, but likewise a woollen worker at Leyden, agreed to the secretary’s propositions.  He had at first told, them that their services would be merely required for the forcible liberation of two Remonstrant clergymen, Niellius and Poppius, from the prison at Haarlem.  Entertaining his new companions at dinner, however, towards the end of January, van Dyk, getting very drunk, informed them that the object of the enterprise was to kill the Stadholder; that arrangements had been made for effecting an immediate change in the magistracies in all the chief cities of Holland so soon as the deed was done; that all the recently deposed regents would enter the Hague at once, supported by a train of armed peasants from the country; and that better times for the oppressed religion, for the Fatherland, and especially for everyone engaged in the great undertaking, would begin with the death of the tyrant.  Each man taking direct part in the assassination would receive at least 300 guilders, besides being advanced to offices of honour and profit according to his capacity.