History of the United Netherlands, 1608b | Page 8

passing through the fiery furnace of its great war,
proved no purer than leading monarchies at a most corrupt epoch. It
was no wonder therefore that men sought to wipe off the stain from the
reputation of Barneveld, and it is at least a solace that there was no
proof of his ever rendering, or ever having agreed to render, services
inconsistent with his convictions as to the best interests of the

commonwealth. It is sufficiently grave that he knew the colour of the
king's money, and that in a momentous crisis of history he accepted a
reward for former professional services, and that the broker in the
transaction, President Jeannin, seriously charged him by Henry's orders
to keep the matter secret. It would be still more dismal if Jeannin, in his
private letters, had ever intimated to Villeroy or his master that he
considered it a mercantile transaction, or if any effort had ever been
made by the Advocate to help Henry to the Batavian throne. This
however is not the case.
In truth, neither Maurice nor Barneveld was likely to assist the French
king in his intrigues against the independence of their fatherland. Both
had higher objects of ambition than to become the humble and
well-paid servants of a foreign potentate. The stadholder doubtless
dreamed of a crown which might have been his father's, and which his
own illustrious services might be supposed to have earned for himself.
If that tempting prize were more likely to be gained by a continuance of
the war, it is none the less certain that he considered peace, and still
more truce, as fatal to the independence of the provinces.
The Advocate, on the other hand, loved his country well. Perhaps he
loved power even better. To govern the city magistracies of Holland,
through them the provincial estates; and through them again the States-
General of the whole commonwealth; as first citizen of a republic to
wield; the powers of a king; as statesman, diplomatist, and financier, to
create a mighty empire out of those slender and but recently
emancipated provinces of Spain, was a more flattering prospect for a
man of large intellect, iron will, and infinite resources, than to sink into
the contemptible position of stipendiary to a foreign master. He
foresaw change, growth, transformation in the existing condition of
things. Those great corporations the East and West India Companies
were already producing a new organism out of the political and
commercial chaos which had been so long brooding over civilization.
Visions of an imperial zone extending from the little Batavian island
around the earth, a chain of forts and factories dotting the
newly-discovered and yet undiscovered points of vantage, on island or
promontory, in every sea; a watery, nebulous, yet most substantial
empire--not fantastic, but practical--not picturesque and mediaeval, but
modern and lucrative--a world-wide commonwealth with a

half-submerged metropolis, which should rule the ocean with its own
fleets and, like Venice and Florence, job its land wars with mercenary
armies--all these dreams were not the cloudy pageant of a poet but the
practical schemes of a great creative mind. They were destined to
become reality. Had the geographical conditions been originally more
favourable than they were, had Nature been less a stepmother to the
metropolis of the rising Batavian realm, the creation might have been
more durable. Barneveld, and the men who acted with him,
comprehended their age, and with slender materials were prepared to
do great things. They did not look very far perhaps into futurity, but
they saw the vast changes already taking place, and felt the throb of
forces actually at work.
The days were gone when the iron-clad man on horseback conquered a
kingdom with his single hand. Doubtless there is more of poetry and
romance in his deeds than in the achievements of the counting-house
aristocracy, the hierarchy of joint-stock corporations that was taking the
lead in the world's affairs. Enlarged views of the social compact and of
human liberty, as compared with those which later generations ought to
take, standing upon the graves, heaped up mountains high, of their
predecessors, could hardly be expected of them. But they knew how to
do the work before them. They had been able to smite a foreign and
sacerdotal tyranny into the dust at the expense of more blood and more
treasure, and with sacrifices continued through a longer cycle of years,
than had ever been recorded by history.
Thus the Advocate believed that the chief fruits of the war--political
independence, religious liberty, commercial expansion--could be now
secured by diplomacy, and that a truce could be so handled as to
become equivalent to a peace. He required no bribes therefore to labour
for that which he believed to be for his own interests and for those of
the