continue in office such city magistrates as were favorable, and to remove
those adverse to the cause.

The Prince was, in reality, clothed with dictatorial and even regal
powers. This authority had been forced upon him by the prayers of the
people, but he manifested no eagerness as he partly accepted the onerous
station. He was provisionally the depositary of the whole sovereignty of
the northern provinces, but ho cared much less for theories of government
than for ways and means. It was his object to release the country from
the tyrant who, five years long, had been burning and butchering the
people. It was his determination to drive out the foreign soldiery. To
do this, he must meet his enemy in the field. So little was he disposed
to strengthen his own individual power, that he voluntarily imposed
limits on himself, by an act, supplemental to the proceedings of the
Congress of Dort. In this important ordinance made by the Prince of
Orange, as a provisional form of government, he publicly announced "that
he would do and ordain nothing except by the advice of the estates, by
reason that they were best acquainted with the circumstances and the
humours of the inhabitants." He directed the estates to appoint
receivers for all public taxes, and ordained that all military officers
should make oath of fidelity to him, as stadholder, and to the estates of
Holland, to be true and obedient, in order to liberate the land from the
Albanian and Spanish tyranny, for the service of his royal Majesty as
Count of Holland. The provisional constitution, thus made by a sovereign
prince and actual dictator, was certainly as disinterested as it was
sagacious.

Meanwhile the war had opened vigorously in Hainault. Louis of Nassau
had no sooner found himself in possession of Mons than he had despatched
Genlis to France, for those reinforcements which had been promised by