to trample upon the most hallowed customs and rites.  What would become of royalty, if in the same breath it should not only renounce the substance, but even put away the symbols of authority.  This insolence of the people was not more dangerous to the king and the archdukes than it was to every potentate in the universe.  It was a sacred duty to resist such insults.  Sage Jeannin did his best to pacify the vehemence of the commissioners.  He represented to them that foreign titles borne by anointed kings were only ensigns of historical possessions which they had for ever renounced; but that it might become one day the pleasure of Spain, or lie in the power of Spain, to vindicate her ancient rights to the provinces.

Hence the anxiety of the States was but natural.  The old Leaguer and political campaigner knew very well, moreover, that at least one half of Richardot’s noble wrath was feigned.  The commissioners would probably renounce the title and the seven seals, but in so doing would drive a hard bargain.  For an empty phrase and a pennyworth of wax they would extort a heavy price.  And this was what occurred.  The commissioners agreed to write for fresh instructions to Brussels.  A reply came in due time from the archdukes, in which they signified their willingness to abandon the title of sovereigns over all the Netherlands, and to abstain from using their signet.  In exchange for this concession they merely demanded from the States-General a formal abandonment of the navigation to both the Indies.  This was all.  The archdukes granted liberty to the republic.  The republic would renounce its commerce with more than half the world.

The scorn of the States’ commissioners at this proposition can be imagined, and it became difficult indeed for them to speak on the subject in decorous language.  Because the archdukes were willing to give up something which was not their property, the republic was voluntarily to open its veins and drain its very life-blood at the bidding of a foreign potentate.  She was to fling away all the trophies of Heemskerk and Sebalt de Weerd, of Balthasar de Cordes, Van der Hagen, Matelieff, and Verhoeff; she was to abdicate the position which she had already acquired of mistress of the seas, and she was to deprive herself for ever of that daily increasing ocean commerce which was rapidly converting a cluster of puny, half-submerged provinces into a mighty empire.  Of a certainty the Spanish court at this new epoch was an astounding anachronism.  In its view Pope Alexander vi. still lived and reigned.

Liberty was not a boon conferred upon the Netherlanders by their defeated enemy.  It had been gained by their own right hands; by the blood, and the gold, and the sweat of two generations.  If it were the king’s to give, let him try once more if he could take it away.  Such were the opinions and emotions of the Dutchmen, expressed in as courteous language as they could find.

“It would be a political heresy,” said Barneveld to the Spanish commissioners at this session, “if my lords the States should by contract banish their citizens out of two-thirds of the world, both land and sea.”