equip armed vessels, not for trade but to capture and plunder Spanish
merchantmen and silver fleets in the West Indies and South America. This
was an advantageous war measure which he had favoured while the war
lasted. It was in no sense a commercial scheme however, and when the
Truce had been made--the company not having come into existence--he
failed to comprehend how its formation could be profitable for the
Netherlanders. On the contrary it would expressly invite or irritate the
Spaniards into a resumption of the war, an object which in his humble
opinion was not at all desirable.

Certainly these ideas were not especially reprehensible, but had they
been as shallow and despicable as they seem to us enlightened, it is
passing strange that they should have furnished matter for a criminal
prosecution.

It was doubtless a disappointment for the promoters of the company, the
chief of whom was a bankrupt, to fail in obtaining their charter, but it
was scarcely high-treason to oppose it. There is no doubt however that
the disapprobation with which Barneveld regarded the West India Company,
the seat of which was at Amsterdam, was a leading cause of the deadly
hostility entertained for him by the great commercial metropolis.

It was bad enough for the Advocate to oppose unconditional predestination
and the damnation of infants, but to frustrate a magnificent system of
privateering on the Spaniards in time of truce was an unpardonable crime.

The patience with which the venerable statesman submitted to the taunts,
ignorant and insolent cross-questionings, and noisy interruptions of his
judges, was not less remarkable than the tenacity of memory which enabled
him thus day after day, alone, unaided by books, manuscripts, or friendly