issued by the States against the epidemic plague of pamphlets or "blue-
books," as those publications were called in Holland, but with little
result. It was not deemed consistent with liberty by those republicans
to put chains on the press because its utterances might occasionally be
distasteful to magistrates. The writers, printers, and sellers of the
"blue-books" remained unpunished and snapped their fingers at the
placard.

We have seen the strenuous exertions of the Nassaus and their adherents
by public appeals and private conversation to defeat all schemes of
truce. The people were stirred by the eloquence of the two stadholders.
They were stung to fury against Spain and against Barneveld by the
waspish effusions of the daily press. The magistrates remained calm,
and took part by considerable majorities with Barneveld. That statesman,
while exercising almost autocratic influence in the estates, became more
and more odious to the humbler classes, to the Nassaus, and especially
to the Calvinist clergy. He was denounced, as a papist, an atheist,
a traitor, because striving for an honourable peace with the foe, and
because admitting the possibility of more than one road to the kingdom of
Heaven. To doubt the infallibility of Calvin was as heinous a crime, in
the eyes of his accusers, as to kneel to the host. Peter Titelmann, half
a century earlier, dripping with the blood of a thousand martyrs, seemed
hardly a more loathsome object to all Netherlanders than the Advocate now
appeared to his political enemies, thus daring to preach religious
toleration, and boasting of, humble ignorance as the safest creed.
Alas! we must always have something to persecute, and individual man is
never so convinced of his own wisdom as when dealing with subjects beyond
human comprehension.

Unfortunately, however, while the great Advocate was clear in his