Barneveld and the peace party, however, were desirous that Spinola, who was known to be friendly to a pacific result, should be permitted to form part of the mission.  Accordingly the letters, publicly drawn up in the Assembly, adhered to the original arrangement, but Barneveld, with the privity of other leading personages, although without the knowledge of Maurice, Lewis William, and the State-Council, secretly enclosed a little note in the principal despatch to Neyen and Verreyken.  In this billet it was intimated that, notwithstanding the prohibition in regard to foreigners, the States were willing—­it having been proposed that one or two who were not Netherlanders should be sent—­that a single Spaniard, provided he were not one of the principal military commanders, should make part of the embassy.

The phraseology had a double meaning.  Spinola was certainly the chief military commander, but he was not a Spaniard.  This eminent personage might be supposed to have thus received permission to come to the Netherlands, despite all that had been urged by the war-party against the danger incurred, in case of a renewal of hostilities, by admitting so clear-sighted an enemy into the heart of the republic.  Moreover, the terms of the secret note would authorize the appointment of another foreigner—­even a Spaniard—­while the crafty president Richardot might creep into the commission, on the ground that, being a Burgundian, he might fairly call himself a Netherlander.

And all this happened.

Thus, after a whole year of parley, in which the States-General had held firmly to their original position, while the Spanish Government had crept up inch by inch, and through countless windings and subterfuges, to the point on which they might have all stood together at first, and thus have saved a twelvemonth, it was finally settled that peace conferences should begin.

Barneveld had carried the day.  Maurice and his cousin Lewis William had uniformly, deliberately, but not factiously, used all their influence against any negotiations.  The prince had all along loudly expressed his conviction that neither the archdukes nor Spain would ever be brought to an honourable peace.  The most to be expected of them was a truce of twelve or fifteen years, to which his consent at least should never be given, and during which cessation of hostilities, should it be accorded, every imaginable effort would be made to regain by intrigue what the king had lost by the sword.  As for the King of England and his counsellors, Maurice always denounced them as more Spanish than Spaniards, as doing their best to put themselves on the most intimate terms with his Catholic Majesty, and as secretly desirous—­insane policy as it seemed—­of forcing the Netherlands back again under the sceptre of that monarch.