embarrassing. The conduct of the confederates was so essentially
tantamount to open rebellion, that the Prince of Orange and his
friends found it almost impossible to preserve a neutrality between
the court and the people. All their wishes urged them to join at
once in the public cause; but they were restrained by a lingering
sense of loyalty to the king, whose employments they still held,
and whose confidence they were, therefore, nominally supposed
to share. They seemed reduced to the necessity of coming to an
explanation, and, perhaps, a premature rupture with the government;
of joining in the harsh measures it was likely to adopt against
those with whose proceedings they sympathized; or, as a last
alternative, to withdraw, as they had done before, wholly from all
interference in public affairs. Still their presence in the council
of state was, even though their influence had greatly decreased,
of vast service to the patriots, in checking the hostility of the
court; and the confederates, on the other hand, were restrained
from acts of open violence, by fear of the disapprobation of
these their best and most powerful friends. Be their individual
motives of reasoning what they might, they at length adopted
the alternative above alluded to, and resigned their places.
Count Horn retired to his estates; Count Egmont repaired to
Aix-la-Chapelle, under the pretext of being ordered thither by
his physicians; the Prince of Orange remained for a while at
Brussels.

In the meanwhile, the confederation gained ground every day. Its
measures had totally changed the face of affairs in all parts
of the nation. The general discontent now acquired stability,
and consequent importance. The chief merchants of many of the
towns enrolled themselves in the patriot band. Many active and