He had sent a state-counsellor, one Bardesius, to the Hague, to open the
matter; but that personage had only ventured to whisper a word to one or
two members of the States, and was assured that the proposition, if made,
would raise such a tumult of fury, that he might fear for his life. So
poor Bardesius came back to Leicester, fell on his knees, and implored
him; at least to pause in these fatal proceedings. After an interval, he
sent two eminent statesmen, Valk and Menin, to lay the subject before the
assembly. They did so, and it was met by fierce denunciation. On their
return, the Earl, finding that so much violence had been excited,
pretended that they had misunderstood his meaning, and that he had never
meant to propose peace-negotiations. But Valk and Menin were too old
politicians to be caught in such a trap, and they produced a brief, drawn
up in Italian--the foreign language best understood by the Earl--with his
own corrections and interlineations, so that he was forced to admit that
there had been no misconception.

Leicester at last could no longer doubt that he was universally odious in
the Provinces. Hohenlo, Barneveld, and the rest, who had "championed the
country against the peace," were carrying all before them. They had
persuaded the people, that the "Queen was but a tickle stay for them,"
and had inflated young Maurice with vast ideas of his importance, telling
him that he was "a natural patriot, the image of his noble father, whose
memory was yet great among them, as good reason, dying in their cause, as
be had done." The country was bent on a popular government, and on
maintaining the war. There was no possibility, he confessed, that they
would ever confer the authority on him which they had formerly bestowed.
The Queen had promised, when he left England the second time, that his
absence should be for but three months, and he now most anxiously claimed
permission to depart. Above all things, he deprecated being employed as
a peace-commissioner. He was, of all men, the most unfit for such a