restitution of Antwerp citadel, and the release of Treslong from prison.

Although, regarded from the Spanish point of view, such demands might
seem reasonable, it was also natural that their audacity should astonish
the estates. That the man who had violated so openly the Ghent treaty
should rebuke the Prince for his default--that the man who had tampered
with the German mercenaries until they were on the point of making
another Antwerp Fury, should now claim the command over them and all
other troops--that the man who had attempted to gain Antwerp citadel by a
base stratagem should now coolly demand its restoration, seemed to them
the perfection of insolence. The baffled conspirator boldly claimed the
prize which was to have rewarded a successful perfidy. At the very
moment when the Escovedo letters and the correspondence with the German
colonels had been laid before their eyes, it was a little too much that
the double-dealing bastard of the double-dealing Emperor should read them
a lecture upon sincerity. It was certain that the perplexed, and
outwitted warrior had placed himself at last in a very false position.
The Prince of Orange, with his usual adroitness, made the most of his
adversary's false moves. Don John had only succeeded in digging a
pitfall for himself. His stratagems against Namur and Antwerp had
produced him no fruit, saving the character, which his antagonist now
fully succeeded in establishing for him, of an unscrupulous and artful
schemer. This reputation was enhanced by the discovery of the
intercepted letters, and by the ingenuity and eagerness with which they
were turned to account against him by the Prince, by Saint Aldegonde, and
all the anti-Catholic party. The true key to his reluctance against
despatching the troops by land, the states had not obtained. They did
not dream of his romantic designs upon England, and were therefore
excusable in attributing a still deeper perfidy to his arrangements.