possession of the coveted territories continued year after year, and were
steadily thwarted by the watchfulness of the States under guidance of
Barneveld. The martial stadholder was more than ever for open war, in
which he was opposed by the Advocate, whose object was to postpone and,
if possible, to avert altogether the dread catastrophe which he foresaw
impending over Europe. The Xanten arrangement seemed hopelessly thrown to
the winds, nor was it destined to be carried out; the whole question of
sovereignty and of mastership in those territories being swept
subsequently into the general whirlpool of the Thirty Years' War. So long
as there was a possibility of settlement upon that basis, the Advocate
was in favour of settlement, but to give up the guarantees and play into
the hands of the Catholic League was in his mind to make the Republic one
of the conspirators against the liberties of Christendom.

"Spain, the Emperor and the rest of them," said he, "make all three modes
of pacification--the treaty, the guarantee by the mediating kings, the
administration divided between the possessory princes--alike impossible.
They mean, under pretext of sequestration, to make themselves absolute
masters there. I have no doubt that Villeroy means sincerely, and
understands the matter, but meantime we sit by the fire and burn. If the
conflagration is neglected, all the world will throw the blame on us."

Thus the Spaniards continued to amuse the British king with assurances of
their frank desire to leave those fortresses and territories which they
really meant to hold till the crack of doom. And while Gondemar was
making these ingenuous assertions in London, his colleagues at Paris and
at Brussels distinctly and openly declared that there was no authority
whatever for them, that the Ambassador had received no such instructions,
and that there was no thought of giving up Wesel or any other of the
Protestant strongholds captured, whether in the duchies or out of them.