Patience had been exhausted.

He had himself done all, and more than could have been demanded.

He had faithfully executed the Ghent Pacification, but his conduct had neither elicited gratitude nor inspired confidence.
The deputies replied, that to the due execution of the Ghent treaty it was necessary that he should disband the German troops, assemble the states-general, and carry out their resolutions.

Until these things, now undone, had been accomplished, he had no right to plead his faithful fulfilment of the Pacification.

After much conversation--in which the same grievances were repeated, the same statements produced and contradicted, the same demands urged and evaded, and the same menaces exchanged as upon former occasions--the deputies returned to Brussels.
Immediately after their departure, Don John learned the result of his project upon Antwerp Castle.