You may be sure that you are all to have a place at the same banquet.
We may forget the past, but princes never forget, when the means of
vengeance are placed within their hands. Nature teaches them to arrive
at their end by fraud, when violence will not avail them. Like little
children, they whistle to the birds they would catch. Promises and
pretences they will furnish in plenty."

He urged them on no account to begin any negotiation with the Governor,
except on the basis of the immediate departure of the soldiery. "Make no
agreement with him; unless the Spanish and other foreign troops have been
sent away beforehand; beware, meantime, of disbanding your own, for that
were to put the knife into his hands to cut your own throats withal."
He then proceeded to sketch the out lines of a negotiation, such as he
could recommend. The plan was certainly sufficiently bold, and it could
hardly cause astonishment, if it were not immediately accepted by Don
John; as the basis of an arrangement. "Remember this is not play", said
the Prince, "and that you have to choose between the two, either total
ruin or manly self-defence. Don John must command the immediate
departure of the Spaniards. All our privileges must be revised, and an
oath to maintain them required. New councils of state and finance must
be appointed by the estates. The general assembly ought to have power to
come together twice or thrice yearly, and, indeed, as often as they
choose. The states-general must administer and regulate all affairs.
The citadels must be demolished everywhere. No troops ought to be
enlisted, nor garrisons established, without the consent of the estates."

In all the documents, whether public memorials or private letters, which
came at this period from the hand of the Prince, he assumed, as a matter
of course, that in any arrangement with the new Governor the Pacification
of Ghent was to be maintained. This, too, was the determination of