the Netherlands there had before been no conspicuous personage, save
William the Silent alone, who had risen to the height of toleration on
which the Advocate essayed to stand. Other leading politicians considered
that the national liberties could be preserved only by retaining the
Catholics in complete subjection.

At any rate the Advocate was profoundly convinced of the necessity of
maintaining harmony and mutual toleration among the Protestants
themselves, who, as he said, made up but one-third of the whole people.
In conversing with the English ambassador he divided them into "Puritans
and double Puritans," as they would be called, he said, in England. If
these should be at variance with each other, he argued, the Papists would
be the strongest of all. "To prevent this inconvenience," he said, "the
States were endeavouring to settle some certain form of government in the
Church; which being composed of divers persecuted churches such as in the
beginning of the wars had their refuge here, that which during the wars
could not be so well done they now thought seasonable for a time of
truce; and therefore would show their authority in preventing the schism
of the Church which would follow the separation of those they call
Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants."

There being no word so offensive to Carleton's sovereign as the word
Puritan, the Ambassador did his best to persuade the Advocate that a
Puritan in Holland was a very different thing from a Puritan in England.
In England he was a noxious vermin, to be hunted with dogs. In the
Netherlands he was the governing power. But his arguments were vapourous
enough and made little impression on Barneveld. "He would no ways yield,"
said Sir Dudley.

Meantime the Contra-Remonstrants of the Hague, not finding sufficient