towards the Hague.

Marquis Spinola, Don Juan de Mancicidor, private secretary to the King of
Spain, President Richardot, Auditor Verreyken, and Brother John Neyen--
a Genoese, a Spaniard, a Burgundian, a Fleming, and a Franciscan friar
--travelling in great state, with a long train of carriages, horses,
lackeys, cooks, and secretaries, by way of Breda, Bergen-op-Zoom,

Dort, Rotterdam, and Delft, and being received in each town and village
through which they passed with great demonstrations of respect and
cordial welcome, arrived at last within a mile of the Hague.

It was the dead of winter, and of the severest winter that had occurred
for many years. Every river, estuary, canal was frozen hard. All
Holland was one broad level sheet of ice, over which the journey had been
made in sledges. On the last day of January Prince Maurice, accompanied
by Lewes William, and by eight state coaches filled with distinguished
personages, left the Hague and halted at the Hoorn bridge, about midway
between Ryswyk and the capital. The prince had replied to the first
request of the States that he should go forward to meet Spinola, by
saying that he would do so willingly if it were to give him battle;
otherwise not. Olden-Barneveld urged upon him however that, as servant
of the republic, he was bound to do what the States commanded, as a
matter involving the dignity of the nation. In consequence of this
remonstrance Maurice consented to go, but he went unwillingly. The
advancing procession of the Spanish ambassadors was already in sight.
Far and wide in whatever direction the eye could sweep, the white surface
of the landscape was blackened with human beings. It seemed as if the
whole population of the Netherlands had assembled, in mass meeting, to
witness the pacific interview between those two great chieftains who had