At a still more recent period we have seen him landing from the gun-boats upon the Kowenstyn, on the fatal 26th May.

These military adventures were, however, but brief and accidental episodes in his career, which was that of a statesman and diplomatist.

As pensionary of Rotterdam, he was constantly a member of the General Assembly, and had already begun to guide the policy of the new commonwealth.

His experience was considerable, and he was now in the high noon of his vigour and his usefulness.
He was a man of noble and imposing presence, with thick hair pushed from a broad forehead rising dome-like above a square and massive face; a strong deeply-coloured physiognomy, with shaggy brow, a chill blue eye, not winning but commanding, high cheek bones, a solid, somewhat scornful nose, a firm mouth and chin, enveloped in a copious brown beard; the whole head not unfitly framed in the stiff formal ruff of the period; and the tall stately figure well draped in magisterial robes of velvet and sable--such was John of Olden-Barneveld.
The Commissioners thus described arrived at Greenwich Stairs, and were at once ushered into the palace, a residence which had been much enlarged and decorated by Henry VIII.
They were received with stately ceremony.

The presence-chamber was hung with Gobelin tapestry, its floor strewn with rushes.