go alone. He had the congress at Hall in Suabia to supervise and direct;
he had to see that the ambassadors of the new republic, upon which they
in reality were already half dependent and chafing at their dependence,
were treated with the consideration due to the proud position which the
Commonwealth had gained. Questions of etiquette were at that moment
questions of vitality. He instructed his ambassadors to leave the
congress on the spot if they were ranked after the envoys of princes who
were only feudatories of the Emperor. The Dutch ambassadors,
"recognising and relying upon no superiors but God and their sword,"
placed themselves according to seniority with the representatives of
proudest kings.

He had to extemporize a system of free international communication with
all the powers of the earth--with the Turk at Constantinople, with the
Czar of Muscovy; with the potentates of the Baltic, with both the Indies.
The routine of a long established and well organized foreign office in a
time-honoured state running in grooves; with well-balanced springs and
well oiled wheels, may be a luxury of civilization; but it was a more
arduous task to transact the greatest affairs of a state springing
suddenly into recognized existence and mainly dependent for its primary
construction and practical working on the hand of one man.

Worse than all, he had to deal on the most dangerous and delicate topics
of state with a prince who trembled at danger and was incapable of
delicacy; to show respect for a character that was despicable, to lean on
a royal word falser than water, to inhale almost daily the effluvia from
a court compared to which the harem of Henry was a temple of vestals.
The spectacle of the slobbering James among his Kars and Hays and
Villiers's and other minions is one at which history covers her eyes and
is dumb; but the republican envoys, with instructions from a Barneveld,