at least 300 guilders, besides being advanced to offices of honour and
profit according to his capacity.

The Blansaerts assured their superior that entire reliance might be
placed on their fidelity, and that they knew of three or four other men
in Leyden "as firm as trees and fierce as lions," whom they would engage
--a fustian worker, a tailor, a chimney-sweeper, and one or two other
mechanics. The looseness and utter recklessness with which this hideous
conspiracy was arranged excites amazement. Van Dyk gave the two brothers
100 pistoles in gold--a coin about equal to a guinea--for their immediate
reward as well as for that of the comrades to be engaged. Yet it seems
almost certain from subsequent revelations that they were intending all
the time to deceive him, to take as much money as they could get from
him, "to milk, the cow as long as she would give milk," as William Party
expressed it, and then to turn round upon and betray him. It was a
dangerous game however, which might not prove entirely successful.

Van Dyk duly communicated with Stoutenburg, who grew more and more
feverish with hatred and impatience as the time for gratifying those
passions drew nigh, and frequently said that he would like to tear the
Stadholder to pieces with his own hands. He preferred however to act
as controlling director over the band of murderers now enrolled.

For in addition to the Leyden party, the Reverend Slatius, supplied with
funds by van Dyk, had engaged at Rotterdam his brother-in-law Gerritsen,
a joiner, living in that city, together with three sailors named
respectively Dirk, John, and Herman.

The ex-clergyman's house was also the arsenal of the conspiracy, and here
were stored away a stock of pistols, snaphances, and sledge-hammers--