.
Besides this cause which Villeroy has found for combing my head, Russy has given notice here that I have kept my masters in the hopes of being honourably exempted from the claims of this government.

The long letter which I wrote to M.de Barneveld justifies my proceedings." It is no wonder that the Ambassador was galled to the quick by the outrage which those concerned in the government were seeking to put upon him.

How could an honest man fail to be overwhelmed with rage and anguish at being dishonoured before the world by his masters for scrupulously doing his duty, and for maintaining the rights and dignity of his own country?
He knew that the charges were but pretexts, that the motives of his enemies were as base as the intrigues themselves, but he also knew that the world usually sides with the government against the individual, and that a man's reputation is rarely strong enough to maintain itself unsullied in a foreign land when his own government stretches forth its hand not to, shield, but to stab him.
[See the similarity of Aerssens position to that of Motley 250 years later, in the biographical sketch of Motley by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

D.W.] "I know," he said, "that this plot has been woven partly in Holland and partly here by good correspondence, in order to drive me from my post with disreputation.

To this has tended the communication of my despatches to make me lose my best friends.