long as the exercise of the Catholic religion flourished there, and not
one day nor hour longer.

Philip then proceeded flatly to refuse the India navigation, giving
reasons very satisfactory to himself why the provinces ought cheerfully
to abstain from that traffic. If the confederates, in consequence of the
conditions thus definitely announced, moved by their innate pride and
obstinacy, and relying on the assistance of their allies, should break
off the negotiations, then it would be desirable to adopt the plan
proposed by Jeannin to Richardot, and conclude a truce for five or six
years. The king expressed his own decided preference for a truce rather
than a peace, and his conviction that Jeannin had made the suggestion by
command of his sovereign.

The negotiators stood exactly where they did when Friar John, disguised
as a merchant, first made his bow to the Prince and Barneveld in the
palace at the Hague.

The archduke, on receiving at last this peremptory letter from the king,
had nothing for it but to issue instructions accordingly to the
plenipotentiaries at the Hague. A decisive conference between those
diplomatists and the States' commissioners took place immediately
afterwards.

It was on the 20th August.

Although it had been agreed on the 1st May to break off negotiations on
the ensuing 1st of August, should no result be reached, yet three weeks
beyond that period had been suffered to elapse, under a tacit agreement
to wait a little longer for the return of the friar. President Jeannin,