republic, of which he professed himself the only friend. Another phase
of Spanish marriage-making had excited his ever scheming and insidious
brain. It had been proposed that the second son of the Spanish king
should espouse one of Henry's daughters.

The papal Nuncius asked what benefit the King of Spain would receive for
his share, in case of the marriage. The French king replied by plainly
declaring to the Nuncius that the United States should abstain from and
renounce all navigation to and commerce with the Indies, and should
permit public exercise of the Catholic religion. If they refused, would
incontinently abandon them to their fate. More than this, he said, could
not honestly be expected of him.

Surely this was enough. Honestly or dishonestly, what more could Spain
expect of the republic's best ally, than that he should use all his
efforts to bring her back into Spanish subjection, should deprive her of
commerce with three-quarters of the world, and compel her to re-establish
the religion which she believed, at that period, to be incompatible with
her constitutional liberties? It is difficult to imagine a more
profligate or heartless course than the one pursued at this juncture
by Henry. Secretly, he was intriguing, upon the very soil of the
Netherlands, to filch from them that splendid commerce which was the
wonder of the age, which had been invented and created by Dutch
navigators and men of science, which was the very foundation of their
State, and without which they could not exist, in order that he might
appropriate it to himself, and transfer the East India Company to France;
while at Paris he was solemnly engaging himself in a partnership with
their ancient and deadly enemy to rob them of their precious and nobly
gained liberty. Was better proof ever afforded that God alone can
protect us against those whom we trust? Who was most dangerous to the