“Sir!” cried John de Witt, “I have given the Prince no cause to hate me.”
“No cause?”
The old statesman’s stern eyes rested on his son.
“You have kept him for twenty years out of what he considers his own.… Do you think that William of Orange does not hold that cause enough to hate you?”
The Grand Pensionary put his hand to his heart in a half agitated manner.
“That the Prince misliked my office I have been brought to see—that he hates me I cannot believe—” he paused, then added,—“he owes me some gratitude.”
“He will hate you the more for that,” replied Jacob de Witt. “Gratitude!—Prince Maurice was grateful to John Van Olden Barnenveldt, was he not?”
“I think the Prince is noble at heart,” said the Grand Pensionary firmly. “I did not educate him to be like Prince Maurice nor like his father——”
But Jacob de Witt interrupted sternly—
“He should have been treated as the Lord Cromwell treated the faithless Stewart if the United Provinces were to keep their liberty.”