He had given him the requisite advice, he continued, and had himself subsequently told the King that, no doubt, letters had been written by Don John to his Majesty, communicating these negotiations at Rome, but that probably the despatches had been forgotten.

Thus, giving himself the appearance of having smoothed the matter with the King, Perez concluded with a practical suggestion of much importance--the necessity, namely, of procuring the assassination of the Prince of Orange as soon as possible.

"Let it never be absent from your mind," said he, "that a good occasion must be found for finishing Orange, since, besides the service which will thus be rendered to our master, and to the states, it will be worth something to ourselves." No apology is necessary for laying a somewhat extensive analysis of this secret correspondence before the reader.

If there be any value in the examples of history, certainly few chronicles can furnish a more instructive moral.

Here are a despotic king and his confidential minister laying their heads together in one cabinet; the viceroy of the most important provinces of the realm, with his secretary, deeply conferring in another, not as to the manner of advancing the great interests, moral or material, of the people over whom God has permitted them to rule, but as to the best means of arranging conspiracies against the throne and life of a neighboring sovereign, with the connivance and subsidies of the Pope.