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Hyde was sent over with a view of persuading the states to disavow Van Beverning; and the king promised that England, if she might depend on Holland, would immediately declare war, and would pursue it, till France were reduced to reasonable conditions. Charles at present went further than words.

Or does he think that a thing to be done with eight thousand men?" * To wit, three thousand men for Scotland, and the usual guards and garrisons in England, amounting to near five thousand men. Sir J. Dalrymple's App p. 161. Van Beverning was the Dutch ambassador at Nimeguen, a man of great authority with the states.

Beverning had incautiously boasted of his dexterity; he had, so he pretended compelled the protector to lower his demands by threatening to break off the negotiation; and Cromwell now turned the tables upon him by playing a similar game. At the same time that he rose in some of his demands, he equipped a fleet of one hundred sail, and ordered several regiments to embark.

The French ambassadors came then to Van Beverning, and told him that they had received orders to consent to the evacuation of the towns, and immediately to conclude and sign the peace.

During the absence of the other ambassadors, Cromwell sought several private interviews with the third who remained, Beverning, the deputy from the States of Holland; and the moderation with which he spoke of the questions in dispute, joined to the tears with which he lamented the enmity of two nations so similar in their political and religious principles, convinced the Dutchman that an accommodation might be easily and promptly attained.

The determined refusal of the States had induced him to withdraw the demand; but he intrigued, through the agency of Beverning, with the leaders of the Louvestein party; and obtained a secret article, by which the states of Holland and West Friesland promised never to elect the prince of Orange for their stadtholder, nor suffer him to have the chief command of the army and navy.

Van Beverning was loudly exclaimed against by the ambassadors of the allies at Nimeguen, especially those of Brandenburg and Denmark, whose masters were obliged by the treaty to restore all their acquisitions.