A letter from him to his Excellency M.Rogier, Minister of the Interior in Belgium--who likewise took the most courteous interest in promoting my views--obtained for me the permission thoroughly to study this correspondence; and I passed several months in Brussels, occupied with reading the whole of it from the year 1584 to the end of the reign of Philip II.
I was thus saved a long visit to the Archives of Simancas, for it would be impossible conscientiously to write the history of the epoch without a thorough examination of the correspondence of the King and his ministers.
I venture to hope, therefore--whatever judgment may be passed upon my own labours--that this work may be thought to possess an intrinsic value; for the various materials of which it is composed are original, and--so far as I am aware--have not been made use of by any historical writer.
I would take this opportunity to repeat my thanks to M.Gachard, Archivist of the kingdom of Belgium, for the uniform courtesy and kindness which I have received at his-hands, and to bear my testimony to the skill and critical accuracy with which he has illustrated so many passages of Belgian and Spanish history.
31, HERTFORD-STREET, MAY-FAIR, November llth 1860.
THE UNITED NETHERLANDS..