He had of his own accord rejected a certain proposed, notable alliance of the utmost importance to this Republic.
[This refers, I think without doubt, to the conversation between
King James and Caron at the end of the year 1815.]
He had received from foreign potentates various large sums of money and other presents.
All "these proceedings tended to put the city of Utrecht into a blood-bath, and likewise to bring the whole country, and the person of his Excellency into the uttermost danger."
This is the substance of the sentence, amplified by repetitions and exasperating tautology into thirty or forty pages.
It will have been perceived by our analysis of Barneveld's answers to the commissioners that all the graver charges which he was now said to have confessed had been indignantly denied by him or triumphantly justified.
It will also be observed that he was condemned for no categorical crime—lese-majesty, treason, or rebellion. The commissioners never ventured to assert that the States-General were sovereign, or that the central government had a right to prescribe a religious formulary for all the United Provinces. They never dared to say that the prisoner had been in communication with the enemy or had received bribes from him.
Of insinuation and implication there was much, of assertion very little, of demonstration nothing whatever.
But supposing that all the charges had been admitted or proved, what course would naturally be taken in consequence? How was a statesman who adhered to the political, constitutional, and religious opinions on which he had acted, with the general acquiescence, during a career of more than forty years, but which were said to be no longer in accordance with public opinion, to be dealt with? Would the commissioners request him to retire honourably from the high functions which he had over and over again offered to resign? Would they consider that, having fairly impeached and found him guilty of disturbing the public peace by continuing to act on his well-known legal theories, they might deprive him summarily of power and declare him incapable of holding office again?
The conclusion of the commissioners was somewhat more severe than either of these measures. Their long rambling preamble ended with these decisive words: