The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1618-19 | Page 5

assizes; they were only able after attempts lasting through two years' time to effect their escape to Amsterdam. After remaining there a year they had removed to Leyden, which they thought "a fair and beautiful city, and of a sweet situation."
They settled in Leyden in the very year in which Arminius was buried beneath the pavement of St. Peter's Church in that town. It was the year too in which the Truce was signed. They were a singularly tranquil and brotherly community. Their pastor, who was endowed with remarkable gentleness and tact in dealing with his congregation, settled amicably all their occasional disputes. The authorities of the place held them up as a model. To a Walloon congregation in which there were many troublesome and litigious members they said: "These English have lived among us ten years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation against any of them, but your quarrels are continual."
Although many of them were poor, finding it difficult to earn their living in a foreign land among people speaking a strange tongue, and with manners and habits differing from their own, and where they were obliged to learn new trades, having most of them come out of an agricultural population, yet they enjoyed a singular reputation for probity. Bakers and butchers and the like willingly gave credit to the poorest of these English, and sought their custom if known to be of the congregation. Mr. Brewster, who had been reduced almost to poverty by his charities and munificent aid to his struggling brethren, earned his living by giving lessons in English, having first composed a grammar according to the Latin model for the use of his pupils. He also set up a printing establishment, publishing many controversial works prohibited in England, a proceeding which roused the wrath of Carleton, impelling him to do his best to have him thrown into prison.
It was not the first time that this plain, mechanical, devout Englishman, now past middle age, had visited the Netherlands. More than twenty-five years before he had accompanied William Davison on his famous embassy to the States, as private secretary.
When the keys of Flushing, one of the cautionary towns, were committed to the Ambassador, he confided them to the care of Brewster, who slept with them under his pillow. The gold chain which Davison received as a present from the provincial government on leaving the country was likewise placed in his keeping, with orders to wear it around his neck until they should appear before the Queen. To a youth of ease and affluence, familiar with ambassadors and statesmen and not unknown at courts, had succeeded a mature age of obscurity, deep study, and poverty. No human creature would have heard of him had his career ended with his official life. Two centuries and a half have passed away and the name of the outlawed Puritan of Scrooby and Leyden is still familiar to millions of the English race.
All these Englishmen were not poor. Many of them occupied houses of fair value, and were admitted to the freedom of the city. The pastor with three of his congregation lived in a comfortable mansion, which they had purchased for the considerable sum of 8000 florins, and on the garden of which they subsequently erected twenty-one lesser tenements for the use of the poorer brethren.
Mr. Robinson was himself chosen a member of the famous university and admitted to its privileges. During his long residence in Leyden, besides the daily care of his congregation, spiritual and temporal, he wrote many learned works.
Thus the little community, which grew gradually larger by emigration from England, passed many years of tranquillity. Their footsteps were not dogged by constables and pursuivants, they were not dragged daily before the magistrates, they were not thrown into the town jails, they were not hunted from place to place with bows and bills and mounted musketeers. They gave offence to none, and were respected by all. "Such was their singleheartedness and sincere affection one towards another," says their historian and magistrate, "that they came as near the primitive pattern of the first churches as any other church of these later times has done, according to their rank and quality."
Here certainly were English Puritans more competent than any men else in the world to judge if it were a slander upon the English government to identify them with Dutch Puritans. Did they sympathize with the party in Holland which the King, who had so scourged and trampled upon themselves in England, was so anxious to crush, the hated Arminians? Did they abhor the Contra-Remonstrants whom James and his ambassador Carleton doted upon and whom Barneveld called "Double Puritans" and "Flanderizers?"
Their pastor may answer for himself and his brethren.
"We profess before God and men," said Robinson in his