It was unjust to blame him for not at once transferring to our island the love which he bore to the country of his birth.

If, in essentials, he did his duty towards England, he might well be suffered to feel at heart an affectionate preference for Holland.

Nor is it a reproach to him that he did not, in this season of his greatness, discard companions who had played with him in his childhood, who had stood by him firmly through all the vicissitudes of his youth and manhood, who had, in defiance of the most loathsome and deadly forms of infection, kept watch by his sick-bed, who had, in the thickest of the battle, thrust themselves between him and the French swords, and whose attachment was, not to the Stadtholder or to the King, but to plain William of Nassau.

It may be added that his old friends could not but rise in his estimation by comparison with his new courtiers.

To the end of his life all his Dutch comrades, without exception, continued to deserve his confidence.