The "Verhooren," or Interrogatories of the Judges, and the replies of Barneveld, have thus been laid before the reading public of Holland, while within the last two years the distinguished and learned historian, Professor Fruin, has edited the "Verhooren" of Hugo Grotius.
But papers like these, important as they are, make but a slender portion of the material out of which a judgment concerning these grave events can be constructed.

I do not therefore offer an apology for the somewhat copious extracts which I have translated and given in these volumes from the correspondence of Barneveld and from other manuscripts of great value--most of them in the Royal Archives of Holland and Belgium--which are unknown to the public.
I have avoided as much as possible any dealings with the theological controversies so closely connected with the events which I have attempted to describe.

This work aims at being a political study.

The subject is full of lessons, examples, and warnings for the inhabitants of all free states.

Especially now that the republican system of government is undergoing a series of experiments with more or less success in one hemisphere--while in our own land it is consolidated, powerful, and unchallenged--will the conflicts between the spirits of national centralization and of provincial sovereignty, and the struggle between the church, the sword, and the magistracy for supremacy in a free commonwealth, as revealed in the first considerable republic of modern history, be found suggestive of deep reflection.
Those who look in this work for a history of the Synod of Dordtrecht will look in vain.