enough and experienced enough to execute the designs to be proposed to
them; so that his army was lying useless on his hands until the
commissioners arrived," and lamented more loudly than ever that Barneveld
was not coming with them. He was now rejoiced, however, to hear that
they would soon arrive, and went in person to the Hotel Gondy to see that
everything was prepared in a manner befitting their dignity and comfort.

His anxiety had moreover been increased, as already stated, by the
alarming reports from Utrecht and by his other private accounts from the
Netherlands.

De Russy expressed in his despatches grave doubts whether the States
would join the king in a war against the King of Spain, because they
feared the disapprobation of the King of Great Britain, "who had already
manifested but too much jealousy of the power and grandeur of the
Republic." Pecquius asserted that the Archdukes had received assurances
from the States that they would do nothing to violate the truce. The
Prince of Anhalt, who, as chief of the army of the confederated princes,
was warm in his demonstrations for a general war by taking advantage of
the Cleve expedition, was entirely at cross purposes with the States'
ambassador in Paris, Aerssens maintaining that the forty-three years'
experience in their war justified the States in placing no dependence on
German princes except with express conventions. They had no such
conventions now, and if they should be attacked by Spain in consequence
of their assistance in the Cleve business, what guarantee of aid had they
from those whom Anhalt represented? Anhalt was loud in expressions of
sympathy with Henry's designs against Spain, but said that he and the
States meant a war of thirty or forty years, while the princes would
finish what they meant to do in one.