A meaner or more malignant postscript to a state paper recounting the
issue of a great trial it would be difficult to imagine. The first
statesman of the country had just been condemned and executed on a
narrative, without indictment of any specified crime. And now, by a kind
of apologetic after-thought, six or eight individuals calling themselves
the States-General insinuated that he had been looking towards the enemy,
and that, had they not mercifully spared him the rack, which is all that
could be meant by their sharper investigation, he would probably have
confessed the charge.

And thus the dead man's fame was blackened by those who had not hesitated
to kill him, but had shrunk from enquiring into his alleged crime.

Not entirely without semblance of truth did Grotius subsequently say that
the men who had taken his life would hardly have abstained from torturing
him if they had really hoped by so doing to extract from him a confession
of treason.

The sentence was sent likewise to France, accompanied with a statement
that Barneveld had been guilty of unpardonable crimes which had not been
set down in the act of condemnation. Complaints were also made of the
conduct of du Maurier in thrusting himself into the internal affairs of
the States and taking sides so ostentatiously against the government.
The King and his ministers were indignant with these rebukes, and
sustained the Ambassador. Jeannin and de Boississe expressed the opinion
that he had died innocent of any crime, and only by reason of his strong
political opposition to the Prince.

The judges had been unanimous in finding him guilty of the acts recorded