Life and Times of John De Witt [pp. 236-250]

LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN DE WITT.
no efforts to prevent it, and that hlie afterwards bestowed
pensions and offices upon the murderers of the two brothers, not
many days after. The ardor prava civiurn jubentiumn was at
that crisis so ungovernable that no earthly power could have
checked it but the direct personal interposition of the illustrious prince, whom they considered their last hope and their
onlDv savior. The desolation of the most lovely portions of Holland by the powerful enemies of the State, treachery under
every disguise, misery and starvation staring them in the face,
it will not excite surprise that in a moment of panic, terror, and
madness, these black crimes should have been committed.
The finger of the "taciturn" prince, whose counsels saved the
country fromn destruction by the mercenary fanatics under the
wolfish dukes of Alva and Parma, seemed -co point to the
young prince, who had inherited his valor and his patriotism.
"That great man," says Macaulay, "rose at once to the full
dignity of his part, and approved himnself a worthy descendant of a line of heroes who had vindicated the liberties of Europe against the house of Austria. Nothing could shake his
fidelity to his country; not his close connection with the royal
family of England, not the most earnest solicitations, nor the
most tempting offers. The spirit of the nation, that spirit
which had maintained the great conflict against the gigantic
power of Philip, revived in all their strength. Counsels, such
as are inspired by a generous despair, and are almost always
followed by a speedy dawn of hope, were gravely concerted
by the statesmen of Holland. To open their dykes, to man
their ships, to leave their country with all its miracles of art
and industry, its cities, its canals, its villas, its pastures, and
its tulip gardens, buried under the waves of the German
Ocean; to bear to a distant climate their Calvinistic faith and
their old Batav_an liberties, to fix, perhaps, with happier auspices, the new Stadthouse of their commonwealth under other
stars and under a strange vegetation in the Spice islands of the
eastern seas;-such were the plans which they had the spirit to
form, and it is seldom that men who have the spirit to form
such plans are reduced to the necessity of execulting them."
The Ruard was sentenced to be discharged from all his offices
and dignities, and to be forever banished from his country.
The last act of the tragedy was now to be performed(l. The
populace were disappointed that the court did not sentence
him to be executed, and were determined to glut their savage
vengeance by a bloody massacre. They gathered round the
prison where he was remanded, and stationed sentinels near
the doors in order to prevent his escape. They then sent a
messenger to the residence of the Grand Pensionary, with a
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