compromised. He had found it an easier task to take Ostend and relieve
Grol than to bolster up the finances of Spain.

His acceptances were becoming as much a drug upon the exchanges of
Antwerp, Genoa, or Augsburg, as those of the most Catholic king or their
Highnesses the archdukes. Ruin stared him in the face, notwithstanding
the deeds with which he had startled the world, and he was therefore
sincerely desirous of peace, provided, of course, that all those
advantages for which the war had been waged in vain could now be
secured by negotiation.

There had been, since the arrival of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands,
just forty years of fighting. Maurice and the war had been born in the
same year, and it would be difficult for him to comprehend that his whole
life's work had been a superfluous task, to be rubbed away now with a
sponge. Yet that Spain, on the entrance to negotiations, would demand
of the provinces submission to her authority, re-establishment of the
Catholic religion, abstinence from Oriental or American commerce, and the
toleration of Spanish soldiers over all the Netherlands, seemed
indubitable.

It was equally unquestionable that the seven provinces would demand
recognition of their national independence by Spain, would refuse public
practice of the Roman religion within their domains, and would laugh to
scorn any proposed limitations to their participation in the world's
traffic. As to the presence of Spanish troops on their soil, that was,
of course, an inconceivable idea.

Where, then, could even a loophole be found through which the possibility
of a compromise could be espied? The ideas of the contending parties