The great majority, both of the States and the people, were in favour, he agreed, of continuing the war.

The inhabitants of the little Province of Holland alone, he said, had avowed their determination to maintain their rights--even if obliged to fight single-handed--and to shed the last drop in their veins, rather than to submit again to Spanish tyranny.

This seemed a heroic resolution, worthy the sympathy of a brave Englishman, but the Earl's only comment upon it was, that it proved the ringleaders "either to be traitors or else the most blindest asses in the world." He never scrupled, on repeated occasions, to insinuate that Barneveld, Hohenlo, Buys, Roorda, Sainte Aldegonde, and the Nassaus, had organized a plot to sell their country to Spain.

Of this there was not the faintest evidence, but it was the only way in which he chose to account for their persistent opposition to the peace-negotiations, and to their reluctance to confer absolute power on himself.

"'Tis a crabbed, sullen, proud kind of people," said he, "and bent on establishing a popular government,"-- a purpose which seemed somewhat inconsistent with the plot for selling their country to Spain, which he charged in the same breath on the same persons.
Early in August, by the Queen's command, he had sent a formal communication respecting the private negotiations to the States, but he could tell them no secret.