would ask their constituents what was to be done in such a melancholy
and singular occurrence. The City of Rotterdam and some others made loud
complaints: They acknowledged that if the three Prisoners were guilty of
treason, or of unlawful correspondence with the Spaniards, they ought to
be prosecuted; but maintained that they could not be legally tried but
by the States of Holland, who alone were their Sovereigns. The Prince of
Orange and the States-General found no way of putting a stop to the
opposition of such Magistrates as were zealous for their Country, or
friends to the Prisoners, but by deposing them. Nothing now remained to
obstruct the Prince of Orange in his projects of revenge: The States of
Holland, not being in a situation to hinder these violences, unwillingly
left the management of this affair to the States-General: but were so
much persuaded of the injustice done them, and the invasion made on
their Sovereignty, that in the end of January 1619[86], notwithstanding
the change of Deputies, they passed a Decree, importing that what had
been done in the imprisonment of the Grand Pensionary, and the
Pensionaries of Rotterdam and Leyden, should not be made a precedent for
the future.

The States-General, desirous of making an end of this affair, on the
nineteenth of November, 1618, nominated twenty-six Commissioners, chosen
from among the Nobility and Magistrates of the Seven Provinces, who were
ordered to repair to the Hague to try the Prisoners. The Decree
appointing these Judges mentioned that the Accused were taken into
custody to secure the tranquillity of the Republic, to hinder the ruin
of Religion and the destruction of the Union, and prevent disturbance
and bloodshed: they were represented as ambitious men, who sought by
secret practices to embroil the State: And to give some appearance of
satisfaction to Holland, it was said in the Decree, that the
States-General had issued it without prejudice to the rights of the