History of the United Netherlands, 1592 | Page 8

was to pass the night. I was quite sensible, however; that the audience was arranged to be thus brief, in order that I should not be able to stop long enough to give trouble, and perhaps to find occasion to renew our complaints touching the plunderings and robberies committed upon us at sea. This is what some of the great personages here, without doubt, are afraid of, for they were wonderfully well overhauled in my last audience. I shall attempt to speak to her again before she goes very deep into the country."
It was not however before the end of the year, after Caron had made a voyage to Holland and had returned, that he 14 Nov. was able to bring the subject thoroughly before her Majesty. On the 14th November he had preliminary interviews with the Lord High Admiral and the Lord Treasurer at Hampton Court, where the queen was then residing. The plundering business was warmly discussed between himself and the Admiral, and there was much quibbling and special pleading in defence of the practices which had created so much irritation and pecuniary loss in Holland. There was a good deal of talk about want of evidence and conflict of evidence, which, to a man who felt as sure of the facts and of the law as the Dutch envoy did--unless it were according to public law for one friend and, ally to plunder and burn the vessels of another friend and ally--was not encouraging as to the probable issue of his interview with her Majesty. It would be tedious to report the conversation as fully as it was laid by Noel de Caron before the States-General; but at last the admiral expressed a hope that the injured parties would be able to make good their, case. At any rate he assured the envoy that he would take care of Captain Mansfield for the present, who was in prison with two other captains, so that proceedings might be had against them if it was thought worth while.
Caron answered with Dutch bluntness. "I recommended him very earnestly to do this," he said, "and told him roundly that this was by all means necessary for the sake of his own honour. Otherwise no man could ever be made to believe that his Excellency was not seeking to get his own profit out of the affair. But he vehemently swore and protested that this was not the case."
He then went to the Lord Treasurer's apartment, where a long and stormy interview followed on the subject of the withdrawal of the English troops. Caron warmly insisted that the measure had been full of danger, for the States; that they had been ordered out of Prince Maurice's camp at a most critical moment; that; had it not, been for the Stallholder's promptness and military skill; very great disasters to the common cause must have ensued; and that, after all, nothing had been done by the contingent in any other field, for they had been for six months idle and sick, without ever reaching Brittany at all.
"The Lord Treasurer, who, contrary to his custom," said the envoy, "had been listening thus long to what I had to say, now observed that the States had treated her Majesty very ill, that they had kept her running after her own troops nearly half a year, and had offered no excuse for their proceedings."
It would be superfluous to repeat the arguments by which Caron endeavoured to set forth that the English troops, sent to the Netherlands according to a special compact, for a special service, and for a special consideration and equivalent, could not honestly be employed, contrary to the wishes of the States-General, upon a totally different service and in another country. The queen willed it, he was informed, and it was ill- treatment of her Majesty on the part of the Hollanders to oppose her will. This argument was unanswerable.
Soon afterwards, Caron was admitted to the presence of Elizabeth. He delivered, at first, a letter from the States-General, touching the withdrawal of the troops. The queen, instantly broke the seal and read the letter to the end. Coming to the concluding passage, in which the States observed that they had great and just cause highly to complain on that subject, she paused, reading the sentences over twice or thrice, and then remarked:
"Truly these are comical people. I have so often been complaining that they refused to send my troops, and now the States complain that they are obliged to let them go. Yet my intention is only to borrow them for a little while, because I can give my brother of France no better succour than by sending him these soldiers, and this I consider better than if I should send him four thousand men.