The deputies were naturally indignant at this elaborate trifling.  They had, in reality, asked him but one question, and that a simple one—­Would he maintain the treaty of Ghent?  Here were twenty-seven articles in reply, and yet no answer to that question.  They sat up all night, preparing a violent protocol, by which the Governor’s claims were to be utterly demolished.  Early in the morning, they waited upon his Highness, presented the document, and at the same time asked him plainly, by word of mouth, did he or did he not intend to uphold the treaty.  Thus pressed into a corner in presence of the deputies, the members of the State Council who were in attendance from Brussels, and the envoys whom the Emperor had recently sent to assist at these deliberations, the Governor answered, No.  He would not and could not maintain the treaty, because the Spanish troops were in that instrument denounced as rebels, because he would not consent to the release of Count Van Buren—­and on account of various other reasons not then specified.  Hereupon ensued a fierce debate, and all day long the altercation lasted, without a result being reached.  At ten o’clock in the evening, the deputies having previously retired for a brief interval, returned with a protest that they were not to be held responsible for the, termination of the proceedings, and that they washed their hands of the bloodshed which might follow the rupture.  Upon reading this document; Don John fell into a blazing passion.  He vehemently denounced the deputies as traitors.  He swore that men who came to him thus prepared with ready-made protests in their pockets, were rebels from the commencement, and had never intended any agreement with him.  His language and gestures expressed unbounded fury.  He was weary of their ways, he said.  They had better look to themselves, for the King would never leave their rebellion unpunished.  He was ready to draw the sword at once—­not his own, but his Majesty’s, and they might be sure that the war which they were thus provoking, should be the fiercest ever, waged.  More abusive language in this strain was uttered, but it was not heard with lamb-like submission.  The day had gone by when the deputies of the states-general were wont to quail before the wrath of vicarious royalty.  The fiery words of Don John were not oil to troubled water, but a match to a mine.  The passions of the deputies exploded in their turn, and from hot words they had nearly come to hard blows.  One of the deputies replied with so much boldness and vehemence that the Governor, seizing a heavy silver bell which stood on the table, was about to hurl it at the offender’s head, when an energetic and providential interference on the part of the imperial envoys, prevented the unseemly catastrophe.