relations with that power seemed to him impossible.  The most intense party spirit, yea, envy itself, must confess that he had been among the foremost to take up arms for his country’s liberties, and had through life never faltered in their defence.  And once more in that mean chamber, and before a row of personal enemies calling themselves judges, he burst into an eloquent and most justifiable sketch of the career of one whom there was none else to justify and so many to assail.

From his youth, he said, he had made himself by his honourable and patriotic deeds hopelessly irreconcilable with the Spaniards.  He was one of the advocates practising in the Supreme Court of Holland, who in the very teeth of the Duke of Alva had proclaimed him a tyrant and had sworn obedience to the Prince of Orange as the lawful governor of the land.  He was one of those who in the same year had promoted and attended private gatherings for the advancement of the Reformed religion.  He had helped to levy, and had contributed to, funds for the national defence in the early days of the revolt.  These were things which led directly to the Council of Blood and the gibbet.  He had borne arms himself on various bloody fields and had been perpetually a deputy to the rebel camps.  He had been the original mover of the Treaty of Union which was concluded between the Provinces at Utrecht.  He had been the first to propose and to draw up the declaration of Netherland independence and the abjuration of the King of Spain.  He had been one of those who had drawn and passed the Act establishing the late Prince of Orange as stadholder.  Of the sixty signers of these memorable declarations none were now living save himself and two others.  When the Prince had been assassinated, he had done his best to secure for his son Maurice the sovereign position of which murder had so suddenly deprived the father.  He had been member of the memorable embassies to France and England by which invaluable support for the struggling Provinces had been obtained.

And thus he rapidly sketched the history of the great war of independence in which he had ever been conspicuously employed on the patriotic side.  When the late King of France at the close of the century had made peace with Spain, he had been sent as special ambassador to that monarch, and had prevailed on him, notwithstanding his treaty with the enemy, to continue his secret alliance with the States and to promise them a large subsidy, pledges which had been sacredly fulfilled.  It was on that occasion that Henry, who was his debtor for past services, professional, official, and perfectly legitimate, had agreed, when his finances should be in better condition, to discharge his obligations; over and above the customary diplomatic present which he received publicly in common with his colleague Admiral Nassau.  This promise, fulfilled a dozen years later, had been one of the senseless charges of corruption brought against him.  He had been