than he had yet played.

It was another trick, exceedingly clever, but somewhat undignified.

He

The same evening, apparently about nine o'clock, the States General re-assembled to hear the determination of Holland. The resolution of the interval was communicated to them, except that portion which authorised Van Beverning and Newport to furnish the States-General with the copy of the Act. The StatesGeneral met the inflexibility of Holland by equal firmness, and adhered to their resolution of the forenoon.1 And now De Witt's master-trick came into play. persuaded the States-General, or their secretary, not to send the resolution to the ambassadors in ordinary writing, but in cypher; and having accomplished this he cunningly retired and wrote a letter in triplicate (so that there might be no possibility of failure) to Van Beverning and Newport in the ordinary character, communicating the resolution of the States-General, transmitting the instructions of Holland of the same afternoon, and repeating his significant hint of the previous midnight, that the Act would, of course, be no longer in their possession.2 De Witt's object was, that if the Act was still undelivered, Beverning, discovering at a glance from his easily read letter what the States of Holland wanted, might steal out and place the Act in Oliver's hands while the official letter and resolution of the States-General were being slowly deciphered. Another express boat was accordingly despatched to England the same evening with the order of the StatesGeneral, the resolution of Holland, and with the three

MS. Further Resolution of States-General, June 6, adopted at this evening meeting.

2 MS. letter of June 6, De Witt to Beverning and Newport. It explains De Witt's object in getting the proceedings of the States-General sent in cypher (Hague Archives); also Sypesteyn's Bijdr. bijl. p. 80, where the letter is printed.

copies of De Witt's private letter. There were now three despatch boats speeding their way to England across the narrow sea, Holland's two being far ahead. And in the way which De Witt contemplated, the Act was delivered to Oliver. While the clerk of the ambassadors was painfully plodding through the Arabic numerals under which the wishes of the States-General were concealed, and spelling the letters and words. slowly out by means of his key, Beverning (perhaps Newport accompanied him),' quietly withdrew and put Oliver in possession of the Act.

There was no necessity for all this machinery of trick and stratagem. The States-General had merely asked for a copy of the Act without prohibiting its delivery, whereas De Witt's device was designed to outwit a resolution that would forbid delivery. But the stratagem reveals the tendency, strong at all times within him, to cover himself and his party with a superfluity of precautions.

MS. De Witt to Brederode, July 3 (Hague Archives). From this letter we learn that Beverning's letter to De Witt of the 12th did not make it clear how the Act of Exclusion had been delivered to Oliver. Accordingly, De Witt wrote for information, and Beverning replied, on June 27, that the ambassadors, after repeated and futile efforts to get the Protector to desist from his demand, delivered to him the Act with a Latin translation of the same, whereupon Oliver retired into another apartment to examine it, in the full Council of State as the ambassadors were informed, and after half-an-hour Oliver again came in, and expressed his satisfaction, thanking, through the ambassadors, the States of Holland very heartily (officieuslyck).

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CHAPTER III.

THE ACT OF EXCLUSION ASSAILED.

THE copy of the Act was duly forwarded by Beverning and Newport to the States-General. This luckless body had all along wanted a man to guide it, and, the Act being now delivered, it found itself helpless. It fell away into months of renewed wrangling and aimless idle recrimination. The Confederacy wanted cohesion. Two of the States were rent by domestic broils, and in one of them there were two bodies both claiming to be the assembly of the Province. Some of the States were deficient in straightforwardness, talking high-sounding loyalty to the House of Orange while they perpetrated little provincial tyrannies against the Prince.1 The pensionaries, the legal mouthpieces of the Provinces, had to write State papers against this action of Holland, which the most enterprising of Englishmen will find it a task in these days to peruse. One thing some of the Provinces did, and it touched De Witt keenly. Just at the moment when all the Dutch world was believing that Van Beverning's splendid diplomacy had triumphed over Oliver, and induced him to accept the 'temperament,' just at the time when the States-General was about to ratify the treaty under that belief, the Treasurer-Generalship of the Union became vacant, and Van Beverning, through

the influence of De Witt, was carried, with loud acclaim, and as it were shoulder-high, into the office as a reward for his achievement. When the hoax was laid bare, Zealand came forward, and, while advocating that the education of the young Prince should be undertaken by the State, withdrew the consent to Van Beverning's appointment, which it had given under false impressions. Friesland (where Prince William's influence predominated) followed it up, denouncing him as a public offender against the State, and moving that he be not allowed to exercise any office pertaining to the Generality until he had rendered an account of his conduct. Utrecht insisted on the recall of the ambassadors, and Groningen declared for annulling the Act of Exclusion in a practical manner by appointing the Prince to the high offices held by his forefathers. The States of Holland stood by their colleague, and defended his public character; but Van Beverning was not permitted to exercise the office of Treasurer-General for several years.

In those days also Prince William came from Friesland to the Hague. He had neither the brain nor the energy to lead the Orange party; and the old dowager-shrewd old lady! had for some years suspected him of striving to further his own interests at the expense of the little Prince. His presence and influence in the Hague gave new courage and zeal to the satellites of the noble house, but he was incapable of suggesting to the supporters of the house a united course of action. The two Princesses and he headed a conspiracy with the view of stirring up the Orange party in the several Provinces to designate at once the little Prince as stadholder and captain-general. The jealous old princess, however, would not hear of a lieutenant-general being appointed during his minority,

and this was a blow aimed at the Frisian prince. A letter had been prepared for circulation among the friends of the house throughout the Provinces, when De Witt, through his spies at court,' discovered the plot, stepped in with a friendly resolution of the States of Holland, which prevented the letter from being sent out, and brought the intrigue to an end.1

Simultaneously with this plot Zealand began to prepare, under oath of secrecy, a ponderous argument against the Act of Exclusion.2 The oath of secrecy did not keep the proceeding concealed from De Witt, who immediately made it known to Beverning and Newport in England. Strangely enough, almost by return of the express boat came a letter from Oliver to the States of Zealand, a friendly, persuasive letter. Had De Witt suggested this? It is not improbable that either he or Beverning had. It was an earnest and outspoken document. Oliver lamented that so many people in the Provinces were striving to undo the security which the treaty and the Act of Exclusion by Holland had given him—the end of all which could only be to re-open the war, and probably to uproot from both countries the pure religion. The latter remark had a special meaning for Zealand, whose loudvoiced clergy and elaborate pensionaries had always thundered against Jesuitism and Spain. The former

1 MS. De Witt to Beverning and Newport, June 26 (Hague Archives). Resolution of States of Holland, June 20.

2 MS. letter, De Witt to Beverning and Newport, June 26.

3 De Witt's chief clerk, who was bribed by Prince William of Friesland, and who was tried and punished for his breach of duty, states this distinctly in a memorandum by him while in prison. But some of the statements in this memorandum are mere inferences by the prisoner, and not actual statements of fact; and they may, therefore, be wrong. In reference to Cromwell's letter to Zealand, the prisoner says that De Witt instigated Beverning and Newport to get Oliver to write the letter. Sypesteyn's Geschiedkundige Bijdragen, tweede afl. 103.