shores before he was sent back again to England at the head of another
solemn legation. One more effort was to be made to arrange this
financial problem and to defeat the English peace party.

The offer of the year 1596 just alluded to was renewed and instantly
rejected. Naturally enough, the Dutch envoys were disposed, in the
exhausting warfare which was so steadily draining their finances, to pay
down as little as possible on the nail, while providing for what they
considered a liberal annual sinking fund.

The English, on the contrary, were for a good round sum in actual cash,
and held the threatened negotiation with Spain over the heads of the
unfortunate envoys like a whip.

So the queen's counsellors and the republican envoys travelled again and
again over the well-worn path.

On the 29th June, Buckhurst took Olden-Barneveld into his cabinet, and
opened his heart to him, not as a servant of her Majesty, he said, but
as a private Englishman. He was entirely for peace. Now that peace was
offered to her Majesty, a continuance of the war was unrighteous, and the
Lord God's blessing could not be upon it. Without God's blessing no
resistance could be made by the queen nor by the States to the enemy,
who was ten times more powerful than her Majesty in kingdoms, provinces,
number of subjects, and money. He had the pope, the emperor, the Dukes
of Savoy and Lorraine, and the republic of Genoa, for his allies. He
feared that the war might come upon England, and that they might be fated
on one single day to win or lose all. The queen possessed no mines, and
was obliged to carry on the war by taxing her people. The king had ever-
flowing fountains in his mines; the queen nothing but a stagnant pool,