Men would say, see in what a desolation the Queen of England has brought this poor people.

As to the freedom of worship, I should have proposed three or four years' interval--leaving it afterwards to the decision of the States." De Dieu.--"But the majority of the States is Popish." The Queen.--"I mean the States-General, not the States of any particular Province." De Dieu.--"The greater part of the States-General is Popish." The Queen.--"I mean the three estates--the clergy, the nobles, and the cities." The Queen--as the deputies observed--here fell into an error.
She thought that prelates of the reformed Church, as in England, had seats in the States-General.

Daniel de Dieu explained that they had no such position.
The Queen.--"Then how were you sent hither ?" De Dieu.--"We came with the consent of Count Maurice of Nassau." The Queen.--"And of the States ?" De Dieu.--"We came with their knowledge." The Queen.--"Are you sent only from Holland and Zeeland?
Is there no envoy from Utrecht and the other Provinces ?" Helmichius.--"We two," pointing to his colleague Sossingius, "are from Utrecht." The Queen.--"What?
Is this young man also a minister ?" She meant Helmichius, who had a very little beard, and looked young.
Sossingius.--"He is not so young as he looks." The Queen.--"Youths are sometimes as able as old men." De Dieu.--"I have heard our brother preach in France more than fourteen years ago." The Queen.--"He must have begun young.

How old were you when you first became a preacher ?" Helmichius.--"Twenty-three or twenty-four years of age." The Queen.--"It was with us, at first, considered a scandal that a man so young as that should be admitted to the pulpit.

Our antagonists reproached us with it in a book called 'Scandale de l'Angleterre,' saying that we had none but school-boys for ministers.