places, that they would have little leisure to think of us. Consider all
this and conceal it from Buzanval."

Buzanval, it is well known, was the French envoy at the Hague, and it
must be confessed that these schemes and paltry falsehoods on the part of
the Dutch agent were as contemptible as any of the plots contrived every
day in Paris or Madrid. Such base coin as this was still circulating in
diplomacy as if fresh from the Machiavellian mint; but the republican
agent ought to have known that his Government had long ago refused to
pass it current.

Soon afterwards this grave matter was discussed at the Hague between
Henry's envoy and Barneveld. It was a very delicate negotiation. The
Advocate wished to secure the assistance of a powerful but most
unscrupulous ally, and at the same time to conceal his real intention to
frustrate the French design upon the independence of the republic.

Disingenuous and artful as his conduct unquestionably was, it may at
least be questioned whether in that age of deceit any other great
statesman would have been more frank. If the comparatively weak
commonwealth, by openly and scornfully refusing all the insidious and
selfish propositions of the French king, had incurred that monarch's
wrath, it would have taken a noble position no doubt, but it would have
perhaps been utterly destroyed. The Advocate considered himself
justified in using the artifices of war against a subtle and dangerous
enemy who wore the mask of a friend. When the price demanded for
military protection was the voluntary abandonment of national
independence in favour of the protector, the man who guided the affairs
of the Netherlands did not hesitate to humour and to outwit the king who
strove to subjugate the republic. At the same time--however one may be