There seems to have been nothing in the usages of the time or country to make the transaction, innocent in itself, in any degree disreputable.

The King promised at some future clay, when he should be more in funds, to pay him a liberal fee.

Barneveld, who a dozen years afterwards received 20,000 florins for his labour, professed that he would much rather have had one thousand at the time.
Thence the Advocate, accompanied by his colleague, Justinus de Nassau, proceeded to England, where they had many stormy interviews with Elizabeth.

The Queen swore with many an oath that she too would make peace with Philip, recommended the Provinces to do the same thing with submission to their ancient tyrant, and claimed from the States immediate payment of one million sterling in satisfaction of their old debts to her.

It would have been as easy for them at that moment to pay a thousand million.