On seeing him, Cornelius de Witt exclaimed in astonishment, 'My brother, what do you here ?' 'Did you not then send for me ?' he asked; and receiving an answer in the negative, 'Then,' rejoined he, 'we are lost'.
"During this time one of the judges sent for Tichelaar, and suggested to him that he should incite the people not to suffer a villain who had intended to murder the Prince to go unpunished.

True to his instructions, the miscreant spread among the crowd collected before the prison doors the report, that the torture inflicted on Cornelius de Witt was a mere pretence, and that he had only escaped the death he deserved because the judges favoured his crime.

Then, entering the gaol, he presented himself at the window, and exclaimed to the crowd below, 'The dog and his brother are going out of prison! Now is your time; revenge yourselves on these two knaves, and then on thirty more, their accomplices.' "The populace received his address with shouts and cries of 'To arms, to arms! Treason, treason!' and pressed in a still denser crowd towards the prison door.

The States of Holland, immediately on information of the tumult, sent three troops of cavalry, in garrison at the Hague, for the protection of the gaol, and called out to arms six companies of burgher guards.

But in the latter they only added fresh hosts to the enemies of the unfortunate captives.