agreed to write for fresh instructions to Brussels. A reply came in due
time from the archdukes, in which they signified their willingness to
abandon the title of sovereigns over all the Netherlands, and to abstain
from using their signet. In exchange for this concession they merely
demanded from the States-General a formal abandonment of the navigation
to both the Indies. This was all. The archdukes granted liberty to the
republic. The republic would renounce its commerce with more than half
the world.

The scorn of the States' commissioners at this proposition can be
imagined, and it became difficult indeed for them to speak on the subject
in decorous language. Because the archdukes were willing to give up
something which was not their property, the republic was voluntarily to
open its veins and drain its very life-blood at the bidding of a foreign
potentate. She was to fling away all the trophies of Heemskerk and
Sebalt de Weerd, of Balthasar de Cordes, Van der Hagen, Matelieff, and
Verhoeff; she was to abdicate the position which she had already acquired
of mistress of the seas, and she was to deprive herself for ever of that
daily increasing ocean commerce which was rapidly converting a cluster of
puny, half-submerged provinces into a mighty empire. Of a certainty the
Spanish court at this new epoch was an astounding anachronism. In its
view Pope Alexander VI. still lived and reigned.

Liberty was not a boon conferred upon the Netherlanders by their defeated
enemy. It had been gained by their own right hands; by the blood, and
the gold, and the sweat of two generations. If it were the king's to
give, let him try once more if he could take it away. Such were the
opinions and emotions of the Dutchmen, expressed in as courteous language
as they could find.