Richardot was as effective as ever in the part which he had so often
played, but Spinola laboured under the disadvantage of being a far
honester man than Alexander Farnese. Far from equal to that famous
chieftain in the management of a great military campaign, it is certain
that he was infinitely inferior to him in genteel comedy. Whether
Maurice and Lewis William, Barneveld and Brederode, were to do better in
the parts formerly assigned to John Rogers, Valentine Dale, Comptroller
Croft, and their colleagues, remained to be seen.

On the 15th of February, at the fifth conference of the commissioners,
the first pitched battle on the India trade was fought. Thereafter the
combat was almost every day renewed. Exactly, as a year before, the
news of Heemskerk's victory at Gibraltar had made the king and the
archdukes eager to obtain an armistice with the rebels both by land and
sea, so now the report of Matelieff's recent achievements in the Indian
ocean was increasing their anxiety to exclude the Netherlanders from the
regions which they were rapidly making their own.

As we look back upon the negotiations, after the lapse of two centuries
and a half, it becomes difficult to suppress our amazement at those
scenes of solemn trickery and superhuman pride. It is not necessary to
follow, step by step, the proceedings at each daily conference, but it is
impossible for me not to detain the reader for yet a season longer with
those transactions, and especially to invite him to ponder the valuable
lesson which in their entirety they convey.

No higher themes could possibly be laid before statesmen to discuss.
Questions of political self-government, religious liberty, national
independence, divine Right, rebellious Power, freedom of commerce,
supremacy of the seas, omnipotence claimed by the old world over the