have driven us out of Julich, and have thus arranged matters entirely to their heart’s content.  They can then, in name of the Emperor, the League, the Prince of Neuburg, or any one else, make themselves in eight days masters of the places which they are now imaginarily to leave as well as of those which we are actually to surrender, and by possession of which we could hold out a long time against all their power.”

Those very places held by the States—­Julich, Emmerich, and others—­had recently been fortified at much expense, under the superintendence of Prince Maurice, and by advice of the Advocate.  It would certainly be an act of madness to surrender them on the terms proposed.  These warnings and forebodings of Barneveld sound in our ears like recorded history, yet they were far earlier than the actual facts.  And now to please the English king, the States had listened to his suggestion that his name and that of the King of France should be signed as mediators to a new arrangement proposed in lieu of the Xanten treaty.  James had suggested this, Lewis had agreed to it.  Yet before the ink had dried in James’s pen, he was proposing that the names of the mediating sovereigns should be omitted from the document?  And why?  Because Gondemar was again whispering in his ear.  “They are renewing the negotiations in England,” said the Advocate, “about the alliance between the Prince of Wales and the second daughter of Spain; and the King of Great Britain is seriously importuning us that the Archdukes and My Lords the States should make their pledges ‘impersonaliter’ and not to the kings.”  James was also willing that the name of the Emperor should appear upon it.  To prevent this, Barneveld would have had himself burned at the stake.  It would be an ignominious and unconditional surrender of the whole cause.

“The Archduke will never be contented,” said the Advocate, “unless his Majesty of Great Britain takes a royal resolution to bring him to reason.  That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice.  We have been ready and are still ready to execute the treaty of Xanten.  The Archduke is the cause of the dispute concerning the act.  We approved the formularies of their Majesties, and have changed them three times to suit the King of Great Britain.  Our Provincial States have been notified in the matter, so that we can no longer digest the Spanish impudence, and are amazed that his Majesty can listen any more to the Spanish ministers.  We fear that those ministers are working through many hands, in order by one means or another to excite quarrels between his Majesty, us, and the respective inhabitants of the two countries . . . . .  Take every precaution that no attempt be made there to bring the name of the Emperor into the act.  This would be contrary to their Majesties’ first resolution, very prejudicial to the Elector of Brandenburg, to the duchies, and to ourselves.  And it is indispensable that the promise be made to the two kings as mediators, as much for their reputation and dignity as for the interests of the Elector, the territories, and ourselves.  Otherwise too the Spaniards will triumph over us as if they had driven us by force of arms into this promise.”