This scheme was much simpler to carry out than the vulgar might suppose, and, when accomplished, it would destroy the commerce, navigation, and fisheries of the Hollanders, throwing it all into the hands of the Archdukes.

This would cause such ruin, poverty, and tumults everywhere that all would be changed.

The Republic of the United States would annihilate itself and fall to pieces; the religious dissensions, the war of one sect with another, and the jealousy of the House of Nassau, suspected of plans hostile to popular liberties, finishing the work of destruction.

"Then the Republic," said the man of universal science, warming at sight of the picture he was painting, "laden with debt and steeped in poverty, will fall to the ground of its own weight, and thus debilitated will crawl humbly to place itself in the paternal hands of the illustrious house of Austria." It would be better, he thought, to set about the work, before the expiration of the Truce.

At any rate, the preparation for it, or the mere threat of it, would ensure a renewal of that treaty on juster terms.