It was a packed tribunal. Several of the commissioners, like Pauw and
Muis for example, were personal enemies of Barneveld. Many of them were
totally ignorant of law. Some of them knew not a word of any language
but their mother tongue, although much of the law which they were to
administer was written in Latin.

Before such a court the foremost citizen of the Netherlands, the first
living statesman of Europe, was brought day by day during a period of
nearly three months; coming down stairs from the mean and desolate room
where he was confined to the comfortable apartment below, which had been
fitted up for the commission.

There was no bill of indictment, no arraignment, no counsel. There were
no witnesses and no arguments. The court-room contained, as it were,
only a prejudiced and partial jury to pronounce both on law and fact
without a judge to direct them, or advocates to sift testimony and
contend for or against the prisoner's guilt. The process, for it could
not be called a trial, consisted of a vast series of rambling and tangled
interrogatories reaching over a space of forty years without apparent
connection or relevancy, skipping fantastically about from one period to
another, back and forthwith apparently no other intent than to puzzle the
prisoner, throw him off his balance, and lead him into self-
contradiction.

The spectacle was not a refreshing one. It was the attempt of a
multitude of pigmies to overthrow and bind the giant.

Barneveld was served with no articles of impeachment. He asked for a
list in writing of the charges against him, that he might ponder his
answer. The demand was refused. He was forbidden the use of pen and ink