The official answer of the States-General to the ambassadors, just cited, gave but little comfort to the friends of the imprisoned statesman and his companions.  Such expressions as “ambitious and factious spirits,”—­“authors and patrons of the faction,”—­“attempts at novelty through changes in religion, in justice and in the fundamental laws of all orders of polity,” and the frequent mention of the word “conspiracy” boded little good.

Information of this condition of affairs was conveyed to Hoogerbeets and Grotius by means of an ingenious device of the distinguished scholar, who was then editing the Latin works of the Hague poet, Janus Secundus.

While the sheets were going through the press, some of the verses were left out, and their place supplied by others conveying the intelligence which it was desired to send to the prisoners.  The pages which contained the secret were stitched together in such wise that in cutting the book open they were not touched but remained closed.  The verses were to this effect.  “The examination of the Advocate proceeds slowly, but there is good hope from the serious indignation of the French king, whose envoys are devoted to the cause of the prisoners, and have been informed that justice will be soon rendered.  The States of Holland are to assemble on the 15th January, at which a decision will certainly be taken for appointing judges.  The preachers here at Leyden are despised, and men are speaking strongly of war.  The tumult which lately occurred at Rotterdam may bring forth some good.”

The quick-wited Grotius instantly discovered the device, read the intelligence thus communicated in the proofsheets of Secundus, and made use of the system to obtain further intelligence.

Hoogerbeets laid the book aside, not taking much interest at that time in the works of the Hague poet.  Constant efforts made to attract his attention to those poems however excited suspicion among his keepers, and the scheme was discovered before the Leyden pensionary had found the means to profit by it.’

The allusions to the trial of the Advocate referred to the preliminary examination which took place, like the first interrogatories of Grotius and Hoogerbeets, in the months of November and December.

The thorough manner in which Maurice had reformed the States of Holland has been described.  There was one department of that body however which still required attention.  The Order of Knights, small in number but potential in influence, which always voted first on great occasions, was still through a majority of its members inclined to Barneveld.  Both his sons-in-law had seats in that college.  The Stadholder had long believed in a spirit of hostility on the part of those nobles towards himself.  He knew that a short time before this epoch there had been a scheme for introducing his young brother, Frederic Henry, into the Chamber of Knights.  The Count had become proprietor of the barony of Naaldwyk, a