instrument must be procured from the king. In the ratification which had
been sent, that monarch spoke of the archdukes as princes and sovereign
proprietors of all the Netherlands. The clause by which, according to the
form prescribed by the States, and already adopted by the archdukes, the
United Provinces were described as free countries over which no authority
was claimed had been calmly omitted, as if, by such a subterfuge, the
independence of the republic could be winked out of existence.
Furthermore, it was objected that the document was in Spanish, that it
was upon paper instead of parchment, that it was not sealed with the
great, but with the little seal, and that it was subscribed.
"I the King." This signature might be very appropriate for decrees issued
by a monarch to his vassals, but could not be rightly appended, it was
urged, to an instrument addressed to a foreign power. Potentates,
treating with the States-General of the United Provinces, were expected
to sign their names.
Whatever may be thought of the technical requirements in regard to the
parchment, the signature, and the seal, it would be difficult to
characterize too strongly the polity of the Spanish Government in the
most essential point. To seek relief from the necessity of recognising-at
least in the sense of similitude, according to the subtlety of
Bentivoglio--the freedom of the provinces, simply by running the pen
through the most important line of a most important document, was
diplomacy in its dotage. Had not Marquis Spinola, a man who could use his
brains and his pen as well as his sword, expressly implored the
politicians of Madrid not to change even a comma in the form of
ratification which he sent to Spain?
Verreyken, placed face to face with plain-spoken, straightforward,
strong-minded men, felt the dreary absurdity of the position. He could
only stammer a ridiculous excuse about the clause, having been
accidentally left out by a copying secretary. To represent so important
an omission as a clerical error was almost as great an absurdity as the
original device; but it was necessary for Verreyken to say something.
He promised, however, that the form prescribed by the States should be
again transmitted to Madrid, and expressed confidence that the
ratification would now be sent as desired. Meantime he trusted that the
fleet would be at once recalled.
This at once created a stormy debate which lasted many days, both within
the walls of the House of Assembly and out of doors. Prince Maurice
bitterly denounced the proposition, and asserted the necessity rather of
sending out more ships than of permitting their cruisers to return. It
was well known that the Spanish Government, since the destruction of
Avila's fleet, had been straining every nerve to procure and equip other
war-vessels, and that even the Duke of Lerma had offered a small portion
of his immense plunderings to the crown in aid of naval armaments.
On the other hand, Barneveld urged that the States, in the preliminary
armistice, had already agreed to send no munitions nor reinforcements to
the fleet already cruising on the coasts of the peninsula. It would be
better, therefore, to recal those ships than to leave them where they
could not be victualled nor strengthened without a violation of good
faith.
These opinions prevailed, and on the 9th August, Verreyken was summoned
before the Assembly, and informed by Barneveld that the States had
decided to withdraw the fleet, and to declare invalid all prizes made six
weeks after that date.
This was done, it was said, out of respect to the archdukes, to whom no
blame was imputed for the negligence displayed in regard to the
ratification. Furthermore, the auditor was requested to inform his
masters that the documents brought from Spain were not satisfactory, and
he was furnished with a draught, made both in Latin and French. With this
form, it was added, the king was to comply within six weeks, if he
desired to proceed further in negotiations with the States.
Verreyken thanked the States-General, made the best of promises, and
courteously withdrew.
Next day, however, just as his preparations for departure had been made,
he was once more summoned before the Assembly to meet with a somewhat
disagreeable surprise. Barneveld, speaking as usual in behalf of the
States-General, publicly produced Spinola's bill of exchange for eighty
thousand ducats, the diamond ring intended for Madame Aerssens, and the
gold chain given to Dirk van der Does, and expressed the feelings of the
republican Government in regard to those barefaced attempts of Friar John
at bribery and corruption, in very scornful language? Netherlanders were
not to be bought--so the agent of Spain and of the archdukes was
informed--and, even if the citizens were venal, it would be necessary in
a popular Government to buy up the whole nation. "It is not in our
commonwealth as in despotisms," said the Advocate, "where affairs of
state are directed by the nod of two or three individuals, while the rest
of the inhabitants are a mob of slaves. By turns, we all govern and are
governed. This great council, this senate--should it seem not
sufficiently fortified against your presents-could easily be enlarged.
Here is your chain, your ring, your banker's draught. Take them all back
to your masters. Such gifts are not necessary to ensure a just peace,
while to accept them would be a crime against liberty, which we are
incapable of committing."
Verreyken, astonished and abashed, could answer little save to mutter a
few words about the greediness of monks, who, judging everyone else by
themselves, thought no one inaccessible to a bribe. He protested the
innocence of the archdukes in the matter, who had given no directions to
bribe, and who were quite ignorant that the attempt had been made.
He did not explain by whose authority the chain, the ring, and the
draught upon Beckman had been furnished to the friar.
Meantime that ecclesiastic was cheerfully wending his way to Spain in
search of the new ratification, leaving his colleague vicariously to bide
the pelting of the republican storm, and to return somewhat
weather-beaten to Brussels.
During the suspension, thus ridiculously and gratuitously caused, of
preliminaries which had already lasted the better portion of a year,
party-spirit was rising day by day higher, and spreading more widely
throughout the provinces. Opinions and sentiments were now sharply
defined and loudly announced. The clergy, from a thousand pulpits,
thundered against the peace, exposing the insidious practices, the
faithless promises, the monkish corruptions, by which the attempt was
making to reduce the free republic once more into vassalage to Spain. The
people everywhere listened eagerly and applauded. Especially the
mariners, cordwainers, smiths, ship-chandlers, boatmen, the tapestry
weavers, lace-manufacturers, shopkeepers, and, above all, the India
merchants and stockholders in the great commercial companies for the East
and West, lifted up their voices for war. This was the party of Prince
Maurice, who made no secret of his sentiments, and opposed, publicly and
privately, the resumption of negotiations. Doubtless his adherents were
the most numerous portion of the population.
Barneveld, however, was omnipotent with the municipal governments, and
although many individuals in those bodies were deeply interested in the
India navigation and the great corporations, the Advocate turned them as
usual around his finger.
Ever since the memorable day of Nieuport there had been no love lost
between the stadholder and the Advocate. They had been nominally
reconciled to each other, and had, until lately, acted with tolerable
harmony, but each was thoroughly conscious of the divergence of their
respective aims.
Exactly at this period the long-smothered resentment of Maurice against
his old preceptor, counsellor, and, as he believed, betrayer, flamed
forth anew. He was indignant that a man, so infinitely beneath him in
degree, should thus dare to cross his plans, to hazard, as he believed,
the best interests of the state, and to interfere with the course of his
legitimate ambition. There was more glory for a great soldier to earn in
future battle-fields, a higher position before the world to be won. He
had a right by birth, by personal and family service, to claim admittance
among the monarchs of Europe. The pistol of Balthasar Gerard had alone
prevented the elevation of his father to the sovereignty of the
provinces. The patents, wanting only a few formalities, were still in
possession of the son. As the war went on--and nothing but blind belief
in Spanish treachery could cause the acceptance of a peace which would be
found to mean slavery--there was no height to which he might not climb.
With the return of peace and submission, his occupation would be gone,
obscurity and poverty the sole recompense for his life long services and
the sacrifices of his family. The memory of the secret movements twice
made but a few years before to elevate him to the sovereignty, and which
he believed to have been baffled by the Advocate, doubtless rankled in
his breast. He did not forget that when the subject had been discussed by
the favourers of the scheme in Barneveld's own house, Barneveld himself
had prophesied that one day or another "the rights would burst out which
his Excellency had to become prince of the provinces, on strength of the
signed and sealed documents addressed to the late Prince of Orange; that
he had further alluded to the efforts then on foot to make him Duke of
Gelderland; adding with a sneer, that Zeeland was all agog on the
subject, while in that province there were individuals very desirous of
becoming children of Zebedee."
Barneveld, on his part, although accustomed to speak in public of his
Excellency Prince Maurice in terms of profoundest respect, did not fail
to communicate in influential quarters his fears that the prince was
inspired by excessive ambition, and that he desired to protract the war,
not for the good of the commonwealth, but for the attainment of greater
power in the state. The envoys of France, expressly instructed on that
subject by the king, whose purposes would be frustrated if the ill-blood
between these eminent personages could not be healed, did their best to
bring about a better understanding, but with hardly more than an apparent
success.
Once more there were stories flying about that the stadholder had called
the Advocate liar, and that he had struck him or offered to strike
him--tales as void of truth, doubtless, as those so rife after the battle
of Nieuport, but which indicated the exasperation which existed.
When the news of the rejection of the King's ratification reached Madrid,
the indignation of the royal conscience-keepers was vehement.
That the potentate of so large a portion of the universe should be
treated by those lately his subjects with less respect than that due from
equals to equals, seemed intolerable. So thoroughly inspired, however,
was the king by the love of religion and the public good--as he informed
Marquis Spinola by letter--and so intense was his desire for the
termination of that disastrous war, that he did not hesitate indulgently
to grant what had been so obstinately demanded. Little was to be
expected, he said, from the stubbornness of the provinces, and from their
extraordinary manner of transacting business, but looking, nevertheless,
only to divine duty, and preferring its dictates to a selfish regard for
his own interests, he had resolved to concede that liberty to the
provinces which had been so importunately claimed. He however imposed the
condition that the States should permit free and public exercise of the
Catholic religion throughout their territories, and that so long as such
worship was unobstructed, so long and no longer should the liberty now
conceded to the provinces endure.
"Thus did this excellent prince," says an eloquent Jesuit, "prefer
obedience to the Church before subjection to himself, and insist that
those, whom he emancipated from his own dominions, should still be loyal
to the sovereignty of the Pope."
Friar John, who had brought the last intelligence from the Netherlands,
might have found it difficult, if consulted, to inform the king how many
bills of exchange would be necessary to force this wonderful condition on
the Government of the provinces. That the republic should accept that
liberty as a boon which she had won with the red right hand, and should
establish within her domains as many agents for Spanish reaction as there
were Roman priests, monks, and Jesuits to be found, was not very
probable. It was not thus nor then that the great lesson of religious
equality and liberty for all men--the inevitable result of the Dutch
revolt--was to be expounded. The insertion of such a condition in the
preamble to a treaty with a foreign power would have been a desertion on
the part of the Netherlands of the very principle of religious or civil
freedom.
The monk, however, had convinced the Spanish Government that in six
months after peace had been made the States would gladly accept the
dominion of Spain once more, or, at the very least, would annex
themselves to the obedient Netherlands under the sceptre of the
archdukes.
Secondly, he assured the duke that they would publicly and totally
renounce all connection with France.
Thirdly, he pledged himself that the exercise of the Catholic religion
would be as free as that of any other creed.
And the duke of Lerma believed it all: such and no greater was his
capacity for understanding the course of events which he imagined himself
to be directing. Certainly Friar John did not believe what he said.
"Master Monk is not quite so sure of his stick as he pretends to be,"
said Secretary-of-State Villeroy. Of course, no one knew better the
absurdity of those assurances than Master Monk himself.
"It may be that he has held such language," said Jeannin, "in order to
accomplish his object in Spain. But 'tis all dreaming and moonshine,
which one should laugh at rather than treat seriously. These people here
mean to be sovereign for ever and will make no peace except on that
condition. This grandeur and vanity have entered so deeply into their
brains that they will be torn into little pieces rather than give it up."
Spinola, as acute a politician as he was a brilliant commander, at once
demonstrated to his Government the impotence of such senile attempts. No
definite agreements could be made, he wrote, except by a general
convention. Before a treaty of peace, no permission would be given by the
States to the public exercise of the Catholic religion, for fear of
giving offence to what were called the Protestant powers. Unless they saw
the proper ratification they would enter into no negotiations at all.
When the negotiations had produced a treaty, the Catholic worship might
be demanded. Thus peace might be made, and the desired conditions
secured, or all parties would remain as they had been.
The Spanish Government replied by sending a double form of ratification.
It would not have been the Spanish Government, had one simple,
straightforward document been sent. Plenty of letters came at the same
time, triumphantly refuting the objections and arguments of the
States-General. To sign "Yo el Rey" had been the custom of the king's
ancestors in dealing with foreign powers. Thus had Philip II. signed the
treaty of Vervins. Thus had the reigning king confirmed the treaty of
Vervins. Thus had he signed the recent treaty with England as well as
other conventions with other potentates. If the French envoys at the
Hague said the contrary they erred from ignorance or from baser reasons.
The provinces could not be declared free until Catholic worship was
conceded. The donations must be mutual and simultaneous and the States
would gain a much more stable and diuturnal liberty, founded not upon a
simple declaration, but lawfully granted them as a compensation for a
just and pious work performed. To this end the king sent ratification
number one in which his sentiments were fully expressed. If, however, the
provinces were resolved not to defer the declaration so ardently desired
and to refuse all negotiation until they had received it, then
ratification number two, therewith sent and drawn up in the required
form, might be used. It was, however, to be exhibited but not delivered.
The provinces would then see the clemency with which they were treated by
the king, and all the world might know that it was not his fault if peace
were not made.
Thus the politicians of Madrid; speaking in the name of their august
sovereign and signing "Yo el Rey" for him without troubling him even to
look at the documents.
When these letters arrived, the time fixed by the States for accepting
the ratification had run out, and their patience was well-nigh exhausted.
The archduke held council with Spinola, Verreyken, Richardot, and others,
and it was agreed that ratification number two, in which the Catholic
worship was not mentioned, should be forthwith sent to the States.
Certainly no other conclusion could have been reached, and it was
fortunate that a lucid interval in the deliberations of the 'lunati ceat'
Madrid had furnished the archduke with an alternative. Had it been
otherwise and had number one been presented, with all the accompanying
illustrations, the same dismal comedy might have gone on indefinitely
until the Dutchmen hissed it away and returned to their tragic business
once more.
On the 25th October, Friar John and Verreyken came before the
States-General, more than a hundred members being present, besides Prince
Maurice and Count Lewis William.
The monk stated that he had faithfully represented to his Majesty at
Madrid the sincere, straightforward, and undissembling proceedings of
their lordships in these negotiations. He had also explained the
constitution of their Government and had succeeded in obtaining from his
royal Majesty the desired ratification, after due deliberation with the
council. This would now give the assurance of a firm and durable peace,
continued Neyen, even if his Majesty should come one day to die--being
mortal. Otherwise, there might be inconveniences to fear. Now, however,
the document was complete in all its parts, so far as regarded what was
principal and essential, and in conformity with the form transmitted by
the States-General. "God the Omnipotent knows," proceeded the friar, "how
sincere is my intention in this treaty of peace as a means of delivering
the Netherlands from the miseries of war, as your lordships will perceive
by the form of the agreement, explaining itself and making manifest its
pure and undissembling intentions, promising nothing and engaging to
nothing which will not be effectually performed. This would not be the
case if his Majesty were proceeding by finesse or deception. The
ratification might be nakedly produced as demanded, without any other
explanation. But his Majesty, acting in good faith, has now declared his
last determination in order to avoid anything that might be disputed at
some future day, as your lordships will see more amply when the auditor
has exhibited the document."
When the friar had finished Verreyken spoke.
He reminded them of the proofs already given by the archdukes of their
sincere desire to change the long and sanguinary war into a good and
assured peace. Their lordships the States had seen how liberally,
sincerely, and roundly their Highnesses had agreed to all demands and had
procured the ratification of his Majesty, even although nothing had been
proposed in that regard at the beginning of the negotiations.
He then produced the original document, together with two copies, one in
French the other in Flemish, to be carefully collated by the States.
"It is true," said the auditor, "that the original is not made out in
Latin nor in French as your lordships demanded, but in Spanish, and in
the same form and style as used by his Majesty in treating with all the
kings, potentates, and republics of Christendom. To tell you the truth,
it has seemed strange that there should be a wish to make so great and
puissant a king change his style, such demand being contrary to all
reason and equity, and more so as his Majesty is content with the style
which your lordships have been pleased to adopt."
The ratification was then exhibited.
It set forth that Don Philip, by grace of God King of Castile, Leon,
Arragon, the Two Sicilies, Portugal, Navarre, and of fourteen or fifteen
other European realms duly enumerated; King of the Eastern and Western
Indies and of the continents on terra firma adjacent, King of Jerusalem,
Archduke of Antioch, Duke of Burgundy, and King of the Ocean, having seen
that the archdukes were content to treat with the States-General of the
United Provinces in quality of, and as holding them for, countries,
provinces, and free states over which they pretended to no authority;
either by way of a perpetual peace or for a truce or suspension of arms
for twelve, fifteen, or twenty years, at the choice of the said States,
and knowing that the said most serene archdukes had promised to deliver
the king's ratification; had, after ripe deliberation with his council,
and out of his certain wisdom and absolute royal power, made the present
declarations, similar to the one made by the archdukes, for the
accomplishment of the said promise so far as it concerned him:
"And we principally declare," continued the King of Spain, Jerusalem,
America, India, and the Ocean, "that we are content that in our name, and
on our part, shall be treated with the said States in the quality of, and
as held by us for, free countries, provinces, and states, over which we
make no pretensions. Thus we approve and ratify every point of the said
agreement, promising on faith and word of a king to guard and accomplish
it as entirely as if we had consented to it from the beginning."
"But we declare," said the king, in conclusion, "that if the treaty for a
peace or a truce of many years, by which the pretensions of both parties
are to be arranged--as well in the matter of religion as all the
surplus--shall not be concluded, then this ratification shall be of no
effect and as if it never had been made and, in virtue of it, we are not
to lose a single point of our right, nor the United Provinces to acquire
one, but things are to remain, so far as regards the rights of the two
parties, exactly as they what to each shall seem best."
Such were the much superfluous verbiage lopped away--which had been
signed "I the King" at Madrid on the 18th September, and the two copies
of which were presented to the States-General on the 25th October, the
commissioners retaining the original.
The papers were accepted, with a few general commonplaces by Barneveld
meaning nothing, and an answer was promised after a brief delay.
A committee of seven, headed by the Advocate as chairman and spokesman,
held a conference with the ambassadors of France and England, at four
o'clock in the afternoon of the same day and another at ten o'clock next
morning.
The States were not very well pleased with the ratification. What
especially moved their discontent was the concluding clause, according to
which it was intimated that if the pretensions of Spain in regard to
religion were not fulfilled in the final treaty, the ratification was
waste-paper and the king would continue to claim all his rights.
How much more loudly would they have vociferated, could they have looked
into Friar John's wallet and have seen ratification number one! Then they
would have learned that, after nearly a year of what was called
negotiation, the king had still meant to demand the restoration of the
Catholic worship before he would even begin to entertain the little
fiction that the provinces were free.
As to the signature, the paper, and the Spanish language, those were
minor matters. Indeed, it is difficult to say why the King of Spain
should not issue a formal document in Spanish. It is doubtful whether,
had he taken a fancy to read it, he could have understood it in any other
tongue. Moreover, Spanish would seem the natural language for Spanish
state-papers. Had he, as King of Jerusalem, America, or India, chosen the
Hebrew, Aztec, or Sanscrit, in his negotiations with the United
Provinces, there might have been more cause for dissatisfaction.
Jeannin, who was of course the leading spirit among the foreign members
of the conference, advised the acceptance of the ratification.
Notwithstanding the technical objections to its form, he urged that in
substance it was in sufficient conformity to the draught furnished by the
States. Nothing could be worse, in his opinion, for the provinces than to
remain any longer suspended between peace and war. They would do well,
therefore, to enter upon negotiations so soon as they had agreed among
themselves upon three points.
They must fix the great indispensable terms which they meant to hold, and
from which no arguments would ever induce them to recede. Thus they would
save valuable time and be spared much frivolous discourse.
Next, they ought to establish a good interior government.
Thirdly, they should at once arrange their alliances and treaties with
foreign powers, in order to render the peace to be negotiated a durable
one.
As to the first and second of these points, the Netherlanders needed no
prompter. They had long ago settled the conditions without which they
would make no treaty at all, and certainly it was not the States-General
that had thus far been frivolously consuming time.
As to the form of government, defective though it was, the leaders of the
republic knew very well in whose interests such sly allusions to their
domestic affairs were repeatedly ventured by the French envoys. In regard
to treaties with foreign powers it was, of course, most desirable for the
republic to obtain the formal alliance of France and England. Jeannin and
his colleagues were ready to sign such a treaty, offensive and defensive,
at once, but they found it impossible to induce the English ambassadors,
with whom there was a conference on the 26th October, to come into any
written engagement on the subject. They expressed approbation of the plan
individually and in words, but deemed it best to avoid any protocol, by
which their sovereign could be implicated in a promise. Should the
negotiations for peace be broken off, it would be time enough to make a
treaty to protect the provinces. Meantime, they ought to content
themselves with the general assurance, already given them, that in case
of war the monarchs of France and England would not abandon them, but
would provide for their safety, either by succour or in some other way,
so that they would be placed out of danger.
Such promises were vague without being magnificent, and, as James had
never yet lifted his finger to assist the provinces, while indulging them
frequently with oracular advice, it could hardly be expected that either
the French envoys or the States-General would reckon very confidently on
assistance from Great Britain, should war be renewed with Spain.
On the whole, it was agreed to draw up a paper briefly stating the
opinion of the French and English plenipotentiaries that the provinces
would do well to accept the ratification.
The committee of the States, with Barneveld as chairman, expressed
acquiescence, but urged that they could not approve the clause in that
document concerning religion. It looked as if the King of Spain wished to
force them to consent by treaty that the Catholic religion should be
re-established in their country. As they were free and sovereign,
however, and so recognised by himself, it was not for him to meddle with
such matters. They foresaw that this clause would create difficulties
when the whole matter should be referred to the separate provinces, and
that it would, perhaps, cause the entire rejection of the ratification.
The envoys, through the voice of Jeannin, remonstrated against such a
course. After all, the objectionable clause, it was urged, should be
considered only as a demand which the king was competent to make and it
was not reasonable, they said, for the States to shut his mouth and
prevent him from proposing what he thought good to propose.
On the other hand, they were not obliged to acquiesce in the proposition.
In truth, it would be more expedient that the States themselves should
grant this grace to the Catholics, thus earning their gratitude, rather
than that it should be inserted in the treaty.
A day or two later there was an interview between the French envoys and
Count Lewis William, for whose sage, dispassionate, and upright character
they had all a great respect. It was their object--in obedience to the
repeated instructions of the French king--to make use of his great
influence over Prince Maurice in favour of peace. It would be better,
they urged, that the stadholder should act more in harmony with the
States than he had done of late, and should reflect that, the
ratification being good, there was really no means of preventing a peace,
except in case the King of Spain should refuse the conditions necessary
for securing it. The prince would have more power by joining with the
States than in opposing them. Count Lewis expressed sympathy with these
views, but feared that Maurice would prefer that the ratification should
not be accepted until the states of the separate provinces had been
heard; feeling convinced that several of those bodies would reject that
instrument on account of the clause relating to religion.
Jeannin replied that such a course would introduce great discord into the
provinces, to the profit of the enemy, and that the King of France
himself--so far from being likely to wish the ratification rejected
because of the clause--would never favour the rupture of negotiations if
it came on account of religion. He had always instructed them to use
their efforts to prevent any division among the States, as sure to lead
to their ruin. He would certainly desire the same stipulation as the one
made by the King of Spain, and would support rather than oppose the
demand thus made, in order to content the Catholics. To be sure, he would
prefer that the States should wisely make this provision of their own
accord rather than on the requisition of Spain, but a rupture of the
pending negotiations from the cause suggested would be painful to him and
very damaging to his character at Rome.
On the 2nd November the States-General gave their formal answer to the
commissioners, in regard to the ratification.
That instrument, they observed, not only did not agree with the form as
promised by the archdukes in language and style, but also in regard to
the seal, and to the insertion and omission of several words. On this
account, and especially by reason of the concluding clause, there might
be inferred the annulment of the solemn promise made in the body of the
instrument. The said king and archdukes knew very well that these
States-General of free countries and provinces, over which the king and
archdukes pretended to no authority, were competent to maintain order in
all things regarding the good constitution and government of their land
and its inhabitants. On this subject, nothing could be pretended or
proposed on the part of the king and archdukes without, violation of
formal and solemn promises.
"Nevertheless," continued the States-General, "in order not to retard a
good work, already begun, for the purpose of bringing the United
Provinces out of a long and bloody war into a Christian and assured
peace, the letters of ratification will be received in respect that they
contain the declaration, on part of both the king and the archdukes, that
they will treat for a peace or a truce of many years with the
States-General of the United Provinces, in quality of, and as holding
them to be, free countries, provinces, and states, over which they make
no pretensions."
It was further intimated, however, that the ratification was only
received for reference to the estates of each of the provinces, and it
was promised that, within six weeks, the commissioners should be informed
whether the provinces would consent or refuse to treat. It was moreover
declared that, neither at that moment nor at any future time, could any
point in the letters of ratification be accepted which, directly or
indirectly, might be interpreted as against that essential declaration
and promise in regard to the freedom of the provinces. In case the
decision should be taken to enter into negotiation upon the basis of that
ratification, or any other that might meantime arrive from Spain, then
firm confidence was expressed by the States that, neither on the part of
the king nor that of the archdukes would there be proposed or pretended,
in contravention of that promise, any point touching the good
constitution, welfare, state, or government of the United Provinces, and
of the inhabitants. The hope was furthermore expressed that, within ten
days after the reception of the consent of the States to treat,
commissioners would be sent by the archdukes to the Hague, fully
authorised and instructed to declare, roundly their intentions, in order
to make short work of the whole business. In that case, the States would
duly authorize and instruct commissioners to act in their behalf.
Thus in the answer especial warning was given against any possible
attempt to interfere with the religious question. The phraseology could
not be mistaken.
At this stage of the proceedings, the States demanded that the original
instrument of ratification should be deposited with them. The two
commissioners declared that they were without power to consent to this.
Hereupon the Assembly became violent, and many members denounced the
refusal as equivalent to breaking off the negotiations. Everything
indicated, so it was urged, a desire on the Spanish side to spin delays
out of delays, and, meantime, to invent daily some new trap for
deception. Such was the vehemence upon this point that the industrious
Franciscan posted back to Brussels, and returned with the archduke's
permission to deliver the document. Three conditions, however, were laid
down. The States must give a receipt for the ratification. They must say
in that receipt that the archdukes, in obtaining the paper from Spain,
had fulfilled their original promise. If peace should not be made, they
were to return the document.
When these conditions were announced, the indignation of the republican
Government at the trifling of their opponents was fiercer than ever. The
discrepancies between the form prescribed and the ratification obtained
had always been very difficult of digestion, but, although willing to
pass them by, the States stoutly refused to accept the document on these
conditions.
Tooth and nail Verreyken and Neyen fought out the contest and were
worsted. Once more the nimble friar sped back and forth between the Hague
and his employer's palace, and at last, after tremendous discussions in
cabinet council, the conditions were abandoned.
"Nobody can decide," says the Jesuit historian, "which was greater--the
obstinacy of the federal Government in screwing out of the opposite party
everything it deemed necessary, or the indulgence of the archdukes in
making every possible concession."
Had these solemn tricksters of an antiquated school perceived that, in
dealing with men who meant what they said and said what they meant, all
these little dilatory devices were superfluous, perhaps the wholesome
result might have sooner been reached. In a contest of diplomacy against
time it generally happens that time is the winner, and on this occasion,
time and the republic were fighting on the same side.
On the 13th December the States-General re-assembled at the Hague, the
separate provinces having in the interval given fresh instructions to
their representatives. It was now decided that no treaty should be made,
unless the freedom of the commonwealth was recognized in phraseology
which, after consultation with the foreign ambassadors, should be deemed
satisfactory. Farther it was agreed that, neither in ecclesiastical nor
secular matters, should any conditions be accepted which could be
detrimental to freedom. In case the enemy should strive for the contrary,
the world would be convinced that he alone was responsible for the
failure of the peace negotiations. Then, with the support of other powers
friendly to the republic, hostilities could be resumed in such a manner
as to ensure a favourable issue for an upright cause.
The armistice, begun on the 4th of May, was running to an end, and it was
now renewed at the instance of the States. That Government, moreover, on
the 23rd December formally notified to the archdukes that, trusting to
their declarations, and to the statements of Neyen and Verreyken, it was
willing to hold conferences for peace. Their Highnesses were accordingly
invited to appoint seven or eight commissioners at once, on the same
terms as formally indicated.
The original understanding had been that no envoys but Netherlanders
should come from Brussels for these negotiations.
Barneveld and the peace party, however, were desirous that Spinola, who
was known to be friendly to a pacific result, should be permitted to form
part of the mission. Accordingly the letters, publicly drawn up in the
Assembly, adhered to the original arrangement, but Barneveld, with the
privity of other leading personages, although without the knowledge of
Maurice, Lewis William, and the State-Council, secretly enclosed a little
note in the principal despatch to Neyen and Verreyken. In this billet it
was intimated that, notwithstanding the prohibition in regard to
foreigners, the States were willing--it having been proposed that one or
two who were not Netherlanders should be sent--that a single Spaniard,
provided he were not one of the principal military commanders, should
make part of the embassy.
The phraseology had a double meaning. Spinola was certainly the chief
military commander, but he was not a Spaniard. This eminent personage
might be supposed to have thus received permission to come to the
Netherlands, despite all that had been urged by the war-party against the
danger incurred, in case of a renewal of hostilities, by admitting so
clear-sighted an enemy into the heart of the republic. Moreover, the
terms of the secret note would authorize the appointment of another
foreigner--even a Spaniard--while the crafty president Richardot might
creep into the commission, on the ground that, being a Burgundian, he
might fairly call himself a Netherlander.
And all this happened.
Thus, after a whole year of parley, in which the States-General had held
firmly to their original position, while the Spanish Government had crept
up inch by inch, and through countless windings and subterfuges, to the
point on which they might have all stood together at first, and thus have
saved a twelvemonth, it was finally settled that peace conferences should
begin.
Barneveld had carried the day. Maurice and his cousin Lewis William had
uniformly, deliberately, but not factiously, used all their influence
against any negotiations. The prince had all along loudly expressed his
conviction that neither the archdukes nor Spain would ever be brought to
an honourable peace. The most to be expected of them was a truce of
twelve or fifteen years, to which his consent at least should never be
given, and during which cessation of hostilities, should it be accorded,
every imaginable effort would be made to regain by intrigue what the king
had lost by the sword. As for the King of England and his counsellors,
Maurice always denounced them as more Spanish than Spaniards, as doing
their best to put themselves on the most intimate terms with his Catholic
Majesty, and as secretly desirous--insane policy as it seemed--of forcing
the Netherlands back again under the sceptre of that monarch.
He had at first been supported in his position by the French ambassadors,
who had felt or affected disinclination for peace, but who had
subsequently, thrown the whole of their own and their master's influence
on the side of Barneveld. They had done their best--and from time to time
they had been successful--to effect at least a superficial reconciliation
between those two influential personages. They had employed all the
arguments at their disposal to bring the prince over to the peace party.
Especially they had made use of the 'argumentum ad crumenam,' which that
veteran broker in politics, Jeannin, had found so effective in times past
with the great lords of the League. But Maurice showed himself so proof
against the golden inducements suggested by the President that he and his
king both arrived at the conclusion that there were secret motives at
work, and that Maurice was not dazzled by the brilliant prospects held
out to him by Henry, only because his eyes were stedfastly fixed upon
some unknown but splendid advantage, to be gained through other
combinations. It was naturally difficult for Henry to imagine the
possibility of a man, playing a first part in the world's theatre, being
influenced by so weak a motive as conviction.
Lewis William too--that "grave and wise young man," as Lord Leicester
used to call him twenty years before--remained steadily on the side of
the prince. Both in private conversation and in long speeches to the
States-General, he maintained that the Spanish court was incapable of
sincere negotiations with the commonwealth, that to break faith with
heretics and rebels would always prove the foundation of its whole
policy, and that to deceive them by pretences of a truce or a treaty, and
to triumph afterwards over the results of its fraud, was to be expected
as a matter of course.
Sooner would the face of nature be changed than the cardinal maxim of
Catholic statesmanship be abandoned.
But the influence of the Nassaus, of the province of Zeeland, of the
clergy, and of the war-party in general, had been overbalanced by
Barneveld and the city corporations, aided by the strenuous exertions of
the French ambassadors.
The decision of the States-General was received with sincere joy at
Brussels. The archdukes had something to hope from peace, and little but
disaster and ruin to themselves from a continuance of the war. Spinola
too was unaffectedly in favour of negotiations. He took the ground that
the foreign enemies of Spain, as well as her pretended friends, agreed in
wishing her to go on with the war, and that this ought to open her eyes
as to the expediency of peace. While there was a general satisfaction in
Europe that the steady exhaustion of her strength in this eternal contest
made her daily less and less formidable to other nations, there were on
the other hand puerile complaints at court that the conditions prescribed
by impious and insolent rebels to their sovereign were derogatory to the
dignity of monarchy. The spectacle of Spain sending ambassadors to the
Hague to treat for peace, on the basis of Netherland independence, would
be a humiliation such as had never been exhibited before. That the
haughty confederation should be allowed thus to accomplish its ends, to
trample down all resistance to its dictation, and to defy the whole world
by its insults to the Church and to the sacred principle, of monarchy,
was most galling to Spanish pride. Spinola, as a son of Italy, and not
inspired by the fervent hatred to Protestantism which was indigenous to
the other peninsula, steadily resisted those arguments. None knew better
than he the sternness of the stuff out of which that republic was made,
and he felt that now or never was the time to treat, even as, five years
before, 'jam ant nunquam' had been inscribed on his banner outside
Ostend. But he protested that his friends gave him even harder work than
his enemies had ever done, and he stoutly maintained that a peace against
which all the rivals of Spain seemed to have conspired from fear of
seeing her tranquil and disembarrassed, must be advantageous to Spain.
The genial and quick-wined Genoese could not see and hear all the secret
letters and private conversations of Henry and James and their
ambassadors, and he may be pardoned for supposing that, notwithstanding
all the crooked and incomprehensible politics of Greenwich and Paris, the
serious object of both England and France was to prolong the war. In his
most private correspondence he expressed great doubts as to a favourable
issue to the pending conferences, but avowed his determination that if
they should fail it would be from no want of earnest effort on his part
to make them succeed. It should never be said that he preferred his own
private advantage to the duty of serving the best interests of the crown.
Meantime the India trade, which was to form the great bone of contention
in the impending conferences, had not been practically neglected of late
by the enterprising Hollanders. Peter Verhoeff, fresh from the victory of
Gibraltar, towards which he had personally so much contributed by the
splendid manner in which he had handled the AEolus after the death of
Admiral Heemskerk, was placed in command of a fleet to the East Indies,
which was to sail early in the spring.
Admiral Matelieff, who had been cruising in those seas during the three
years past, was now on his way home. His exploits had been worthy the
growing fame of the republican navy. In the summer of 1606 he had laid
siege to the town and fortress of Malacca, constructed by the Portuguese
at the southmost extremity of the Malay peninsula. Andreas Hurtado de
Mendoza commanded the position, with a force of three thousand men, among
whom were many Indians. The King or Sultan of Johore, at the
south-eastern extremity of the peninsula, remained faithful to his Dutch
allies, and accepted the proposition of Matelieff to take part in the
hostilities now begun. The admiral's fleet consisted of eleven small
ships, with fourteen hundred men. It was not exactly a military
expedition. To the sailors of each ship were assigned certain shares of
the general profits, and as it was obvious that more money was likely to
be gained by trade with the natives, or by the capture of such stray
carracks and other, merchantmen of the enemy as were frequently to be met
in these regions, the men were not particularly eager to take part in
sieges of towns or battles with cruisers. Matelieff, however, had
sufficient influence over his comrades to inflame their zeal on this
occasion for the fame of the republic, and to induce them to give the
Indian princes and the native soldiery a lesson in Batavian warfare.
A landing was effected on the peninsula, the sailors and guns were
disembarked, and an imposing auxiliary force, sent, according to promise,
after much delay, by the Sultan of Johore, proceeded to invest Malacca.
The ground proved wet, swampy, and impracticable for trenches, galleries,
covered ways, and all the other machinery of a regular siege. Matelieff
was not a soldier nor a naval commander by profession, but a
merchant-skipper, like so many other heroes whose achievements were to be
the permanent glory of their fatherland. He would not, however, have been
a Netherlander had he not learned something of the science which Prince
Maurice had so long been teaching, not only to his own countrymen but to
the whole world. So moveable turrets, constructed of the spice-trees
which grew in rank luxuriance all around, were filled with earth and
stones, and advanced towards the fort. Had the natives been as docile to
learn as the Hollanders were eager to teach a few easy lessons in the
military art, the doom of Andreas Hurtado de Mendoza would have been
sealed. But the great truths which those youthful pedants, Maurice and
Lewis William, had extracted twenty years before from the works of the
Emperor Leo and earlier pagans, amid the jeers of veterans, were not easy
to transplant to the Malayan peninsula.
It soon proved that those white-turbaned, loose-garmented, supple
jointed, highly-picturesque troops of the sultan were not likely to
distinguish themselves for anything but wonderful rapidity in retreat.
Not only did they shrink from any advance towards the distant forts, but
they were incapable of abiding an attack within or behind their towers,
and, at every random shot from the enemy's works, they threw down their
arms and fled from their stations in dismay. It was obvious enough that
the conquest and subjugation of such feeble warriors by the Portuguese
and Spaniards were hardly to be considered brilliant national trophies.
They had fallen an easy prey to the first European invader. They had no
discipline, no obedience, no courage; and Matelieff soon found that to
attempt a scientific siege with such auxiliaries against a
well-constructed stone fortress, garrisoned with three thousand troops,
under an experienced Spanish soldier, was but midsummer madness.
Fevers and horrible malaria, bred by the blazing sun of the equator out
of those pestilential jungles, poisoned the atmosphere. His handful of
troops, amounting to not much more than a hundred men to each of his
ships, might melt away before his eyes. Nevertheless, although it was
impossible for him to carry the place by regular approach, he would not
abandon the hope of reducing it by famine. During four months long,
accordingly, he kept every avenue by land or sea securely invested. In
August, however, the Spanish viceroy of India, Don Alphonso de Castro,
made his appearance on the scene. Coming from Goa with a splendid fleet,
numbering fourteen great galleons, four galleys, and sixteen smaller
vessels, manned by three thousand seven hundred Portuguese and other
Europeans, and an equal number of native troops, he had at first directed
his course towards Atchen, on the north-west point of Sumatra. Here, with
the magnificent arrogance which Spanish and Portuguese viceroys were
accustomed to manifest towards the natives of either India, he summoned
the king to surrender his strongholds, to assist in constructing a
fortress for the use of his conquerors, to deliver up all the
Netherlanders within his domains, and to pay the expenses of the
expedition which had thus been sent to chastise him. But the King of
Atchen had not sent ambassadors into the camp of Prince Maurice before
the city of Grave in vain. He had learned that there were other white
skins besides the Spaniards at the antipodes, and that the republic whose
achievements in arts and arms were conspicuous trophies of Western
civilization, was not, as it had been represented to him, a mere nest of
pirates. He had learned to prefer an alliance with Holland to slavery
under Spain. Moreover, he had Dutch engineers and architects in his
service, and a well-constructed system of Dutch fortifications around his
capital. To the summons to surrender himself and his allies he returned a
defiant answer. The viceroy ordered an attack upon the city. One fort was
taken. From before the next he was repulsed with great loss. The
Sumatrans had derived more profit from intercourse with Europeans than
the inhabitants of Johore or the Moluccas had done. De Castro abandoned
the siege. He had received intelligence of the dangerous situation of
Malacca, and moved down upon the place with his whole fleet. Admiral
Matelieff, apprised by scouts of his approach, behaved with the readiness
and coolness of a veteran campaigner. Before De Castro could arrive in
the roadstead of Malacca, he had withdrawn all his troops from their
positions, got all his artillery reshipped, and was standing out in the
straits, awaiting the enemy.
On the 17th August, the two fleets, so vastly disproportionate in number,
size, equipment, and military force--eighteen galleons and galleys, with
four or five thousand fighting men, against eleven small vessels and
twelve or fourteen hundred sailors--met in that narrow sea. The action
lasted all day. It was neither spirited nor sanguinary. It ought to have
been within the power of the Spaniard to crush his diminutive adversary.
It might have seemed a sufficient triumph for Matelieff to manoeuvre
himself out of harm's way. No vessel on either side was boarded, not one
surrendered, but two on each side were set on fire and destroyed. Eight
of the Dutchmen were killed--not a very sanguinary result after a day's
encounter with so imposing an armada. De Castro's losses were much
greater, but still the battle was an insignificant one, and neither fleet
gained a victory. Night put an end to the cannonading, and the Spaniards
withdrew to Malacca, while Matelieff bore away to Johore. The siege of
Malacca was relieved, and the Netherlanders now occupied themselves with
the defence of the feeble sovereign at the other point of the peninsula.
Matelieff lay at Johore a month, repairing damages and laying in
supplies. While still at the place, he received information that a large
part of the Spanish armada had sailed from Malacca. Several of his own
crew, who had lost their shares in the adventure by the burning of the
ships to which they belonged in the action of 17th August, were reluctant
and almost mutinous when their admiral now proposed to them a sudden
assault on the portion of the Spanish fleet still remaining within reach.
They had not come forth for barren glory, many protested, but in search
of fortune; they were not elated by the meagre result of the expedition.
Matelieff succeeded, however, at last in inspiring all the men of his
command with an enthusiasm superior to sordid appeals, and made a few
malcontents. On the 21st September, he sailed to Malacca, and late in the
afternoon again attacked the Spaniards. Their fleet consisted of seven
great galleons and three galleys lying in a circle before the town. The
outermost ship, called the St. Nicholas, was boarded by men from three of
the Dutch galleots with sudden and irresistible fury. There was a brief
but most terrible action, the Netherlanders seeming endowed with
superhuman vigour. So great was the panic that there was hardly an effort
at defence, and within less than an hour nearly every Spaniard on board
the St. Nicholas had been put to the sword. The rest of the armada
engaged the Dutch fleet with spirit, but one of the great galleons was
soon set on fire and burned to the water's edge. Another, dismasted and
crippled, struck her flag, and all that remained would probably have been
surrendered or destroyed had not the sudden darkness of a tropical
nightfall put an end to the combat at set of sun. Next morning another
galleon, in a shattered and sinking condition, was taken possession of
and found filled with dead and dying. The rest of the Spanish ships made
their escape into the harbour of Malacca. Matelieff stood off and on in
the straits for a day or two, hesitating for fear of shallows to follow
into the roadstead. Before he could take a decision, he had the
satisfaction of seeing the enemy, panic-struck, save him any further
trouble. Not waiting for another attack, the Spaniards set fire to every
one of their ships, and retired into their fortress, while Matelieff and
his men enjoyed the great conflagration as idle spectators. Thus the
enterprising Dutch admiral had destroyed ten great war-ships of the
enemy, and, strange to relate, had scarcely lost one man of his whole
squadron. Rarely had a more complete triumph been achieved on the water
than in this battle in the straits of Malacca. Matelieff had gained much
glory but very little booty. He was also encumbered with a great number
of prisoners.
These he sent to Don Alphonso, exchanging them for a very few
Netherlanders then in Spanish hands, at the rate of two hundred Spaniards
for ten Dutchmen--thus showing that he held either the enemy very cheap,
or his own countrymen very dear. The captured ships he burned as useless
to him, but retained twenty-four pieces of artillery.
It was known to Matelieff that the Spanish viceroy had received
instructions to inflict chastisement on all the oriental potentates and
their subjects who had presumed of late to trade and to form alliances
with the Netherlanders. Johore, Achem, Paham, Patane, Amboyna, and
Bantam, were the most probable points of attack. Johore had now been
effectually defended, Achem had protected itself. The Dutch fleet
proceeded at first to Bantams for refreshment, and from this point
Matelieff sent three of his ships back to Holland. With the six remaining
to him, he sailed for the Moluccas, having heard of various changes which
had taken place in that important archipelago. Pausing at the great
emporium of nutmegs and all-spice, Amboyna, he took measures for
strengthening the fortifications of the place, which was well governed by
Frederick Houtman, and then proceeded to Ternate and Tidor.
During the absence of the Netherlanders, after the events on those
islands recorded in a previous chapter, the Spaniards had swept down upon
them from the Philippines with a fleet of thirty-seven ships, and had
taken captive the Sultan of Ternate; while the potentate of Tidor, who
had been left by Stephen van der Hagen in possession of his territories
on condition of fidelity to the Dutch, was easily induced to throw aside
the mask, and to renew his servitude to Spain. Thus both the coveted
clove-islands had relapsed into the control of the enemy. Matelieff found
it dangerous, on account of quicksands and shallows, to land on Tydore,
but he took very energetic measures to recover possession of Ternate. On
the southern side of the island, the Spaniards had built a fort and a
town. The Dutch admiral disembarked upon the northern side, and, with
assistance of the natives, succeeded in throwing up substantial
fortifications at a village called Malaya. The son of the former sultan,
who was a Spanish prisoner at the Philippines, was now formally inducted
into his father's sovereignty, and Matelieff established at Malaya for
his protection a garrison of forty-five Hollanders and a navy of four
small yachts. Such were the slender means with which Oriental empires
were founded in those days by the stout-hearted adventurers of the little
Batavian republic.
With this miniature army and navy, and by means of his alliance with the
distant commonwealth, of whose power this handful of men was a symbol,
the King of Ternate was thenceforth to hold his own against the rival
potentate on the other island, supported by the Spanish king. The same
convention of commerce and amity was made with the Ternatians as the one
which Stephen van der Hagen had formerly concluded with the Bandians; and
it was agreed that the potentate should be included in any treaty of
peace that might be made between the republic and Spain.
Matelieff, with three ships and a cutter, now sailed for China, but lost
his time in endeavouring to open trade with the Celestial empire. The
dilatory mandarins drove him at last out of all patience, and, on turning
his prows once more southward, he had nearly brought his long expedition
to a disastrous termination. Six well-armed, well-equipped Portuguese
galleons sailed out of Macao to assail him. It was not Matelieff's
instinct to turn his back on a foe, however formidable, but on this
occasion discretion conquered instinct. His three ships were out of
repair; he had a deficiency of powder; he was in every respect unprepared
for a combat; and he reflected upon the unfavourable impression which
would be made on the Chinese mind should the Hollanders, upon their first
appearance in the flowery regions, be vanquished by the Portuguese. He
avoided an encounter, therefore, and, by skilful seamanship, eluded all
attempts of the foe at pursuit. Returning to Ternate, he had the
satisfaction to find that during his absence the doughty little garrison
of Malaya had triumphantly defeated the Spaniards in an assault on the
fortifications of the little town. On the other hand, the King of Johore,
panic-struck on the departure of his Dutch protectors, had burned his own
capital, and had betaken himself with all his court into the jungle.
Commending the one and rebuking the other potentate, the admiral provided
assistance for both, some Dutch trading, vessels having meantime arrived
in the archipelago. Matelieff now set sail for Holland, taking with him
some ambassadors from the King of Siam and five ships well laden with
spice. On his return he read a report of his adventures to the
States-General, and received the warm commendations of their High
Mightinesses. Before his departure from the tropics, Paul van Kaarden,
with eight war-ships, had reached Bantam. On his arrival in Holland the
fleet of Peter ver Hoef was busily fitting out for another great
expedition to the East. This was the nation which Spanish courtiers
thought to exclude for ever from commerce with India and America, because
the Pope a century before had divided half the globe between Ferdinand
the Catholic and Emmanuel the Fortunate.
It may be supposed that the results of Matelieff's voyage were likely to
influence the pending negotiations for peace.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A sovereign remedy for the disease of liberty
All the ministers and great functionaries received presents
Because he had been successful (hated)
But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate
By turns, we all govern and are governed
Contempt for treaties however solemnly ratified
Despised those who were grateful
Idiotic principle of sumptuary legislation
Indulging them frequently with oracular advice
Justified themselves in a solemn consumption of time
Man who cannot dissemble is unfit to reign
Men fought as if war was the normal condition of humanity
Men who meant what they said and said what they meant
Negotiated as if they were all immortal
Philip of Macedon, who considered no city impregnable
To negotiate was to bribe right and left, and at every step
Unwise impatience for peace
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
By John Lothrop Motley
History United Netherlands, Volume 81, 1608