If they don't agree, the world at least will see that it is not we who are in fault." The world would see, and would never have forgiven a statesman in the position of Barneveld, had he accepted a bald agreement from a subordinate like the Archduke, a perfectly insignificant personage in the great drama then enacting, and given up guarantees both from the Archduke's master and from the two great allies of the Republic.

He stood out manfully against Spain and England at every hazard, and under a pelting storm of obloquy, and this was the man whose designs the English secretary of state had dared to describe "as of no other nature than to cause the Provinces to relapse into the hands of Spain." It appeared too a little later that Barneveld's influence with the French government, owing to his judicious support of it so long as it was a government, had been decidedly successful.

Drugged as France was by the Spanish marriage treaty, she was yet not so sluggish nor spell-bound as the King of Great Britain.
"France will not urge upon the Hollanders to execute the proposal as we made it," wrote the Archduke to the King, "so negotiations are at a standstill.

The Hollanders say it is better that each party should remain with what each possesses.

So that if it does not come to blows, and if these insolences go on as they have done, the Hollanders will be gaining and occupying more territory every day." Thus once more the ancient enemies and masters of the Republic were making the eulogy of the Dutch statesman.