combined, Spain would have been forced to beat a retreat, and
Protestantism in the great general war just beginning would have had
an enormous advantage in position. But the English Solomon could not
see the wisdom of this policy. "The King of England says we are right,"
continued the Archduke, "and has ordered his ambassador to insist on our
view. The French ambassador here says that his colleague at the Hague
has similar instructions, but admits that he has not acted up to them.
There is not much chance of the Hollanders changing. It would be well
that the King should send a written ultimatum that the Hollanders should
sign the convention which we propose. If they don't agree, the world at
least will see that it is not we who are in fault."

The world would see, and would never have forgiven a statesman in
the position of Barneveld, had he accepted a bald agreement from a
subordinate like the Archduke, a perfectly insignificant personage in
the great drama then enacting, and given up guarantees both from the
Archduke's master and from the two great allies of the Republic. He
stood out manfully against Spain and England at every hazard, and under a
pelting storm of obloquy, and this was the man whose designs the English
secretary of state had dared to describe "as of no other nature than to
cause the Provinces to relapse into the hands of Spain."

It appeared too a little later that Barneveld's influence with the French
government, owing to his judicious support of it so long as it was a
government, had been decidedly successful. Drugged as France was by the
Spanish marriage treaty, she was yet not so sluggish nor spell-bound as
the King of Great Britain.

"France will not urge upon the Hollanders to execute the proposal as we
made it," wrote the Archduke to the King, "so negotiations are at a