History of the United Netherlands, 1598 | Page 2

the instant plot or passing
episode, as if the universe began and ended with each generation--as in
reality it would appear to do for the great multitude of the actors. There
seems but a change of masks, of costume, of phraseology, combined
with a noisy but eternal monotony. Yet while men are produced and are
whirled away again in endless succession, Man remains, and to all
appearance is perpetual and immortal even on this earth. Whatever
science acquires man inherits. Whatever steadfastness is gained for
great moral truths which change not through the ages--however they
may be thought, in dark or falsely brilliant epochs, to resolve
themselves into elemental vapour--gives man a securer foothold in his
onward and upward progress. The great, continuous history of that
progress is not made up of the reigns of kings or the lives of politicians,
with whose names history has often found it convenient to mark its
epochs. These are but milestones on the turnpike. Human progress is
over a vast field, and it is only at considerable intervals that a
retrospective view enables us to discern whether the movement has
been slow or rapid, onward or retrograde.
The record of our race is essentially unwritten. What we call history is
but made up of a few scattered fragments, while it is scarcely given to
human intelligence to comprehend the great whole. Yet it is strange to
reflect upon the leisurely manner in which great affairs were conducted
in the period with which we are now occupied, as compared with the
fever and whirl of our own times, in which the stupendous powers of
steam and electricity are ever-ready to serve the most sublime or the
most vulgar purposes of mankind. Whether there were ever a critical
moment in which a rapid change might have been effected in royal or
national councils, had telegraphic wires and express trains been at the
command of Henry, or Burghley, or Barneveld, or the Cardinal Albert,
need not and cannot be decided. It is almost diverting, however, to see
how closely the intrigues of cabinets, the movements of armies, the
plans of patriots, were once dependent on those natural elements over
which man has now gained almost despotic control.
Here was the republic intensely eager to prevent, with all speed, the
consummation of a treaty between its ally and its enemy--a step which
it was feared might be fatal to its national existence, and concerning
which there seemed a momentary hesitation. Yet Barneveld and

Justinus of Nassau, although ready on the last day of January, were not
able to sail from the Brill to Dieppe until the 18th March, on account of
a persistent south-west wind.
After forty-six days of waiting, the envoys, accompanied by Buzanval,
Henry's resident at the Hague, were at last, on the 18th March, enabled
to set sail with a favourable breeze. As it was necessary for travellers in
that day to provide themselves with every possible material for their
journey--carriages, horses, hosts of servants, and beds, fortunate
enough if they found roads and occasionally food--Barneveld and
Nassau were furnished with three ships of war, while another legation
on its way to England had embarked in two other vessels of the same
class. A fleet of forty or fifty merchantmen sailed under their convoy.
Departing from the Brill in this imposing manner, they sailed by Calais,
varying the monotony of the voyage by a trifling sea-fight with some
cruisers from that Spanish port, neither side receiving any damage.
Landing at Dieppe on the morning of the 20th, the envoys were
received with much ceremony at the city gates by the governor of the
place, who conducted them in a stately manner to a house called the
king's mansion, which he politely placed at their disposal. "As we
learned, however," says Barneveld, with grave simplicity; "that there
was no furniture whatever in that royal abode, we thanked his
Excellency, and declared that we would rather go to a tavern."
After three days of repose and preparation in Dieppe, they started at
dawn on their journey to Rouen, where they arrived at sundown.
On the next morning but one they set off again on their travels, and
slept that night at Louviers. Another long day's journey brought them to
Evreux. On the 27th they came to Dreux, on the 28th to Chartres, and
on the 29th to Chateaudun. On the 30th, having started an hour before
sunrise, they were enabled after a toilsome journey to reach Blois at an
hour after dark. Exhausted with fatigue, they reposed in that city for a
day, and on the 1st April proceeded, partly by the river Loire and partly
by the road, as far as Tours. Here they were visited by nobody, said
Barneveld, but fiddlers and drummers, and were