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Dykvelt, whose adroitness and intimate knowledge of English politics made his assistance, at such a conjuncture, peculiarly valuable, was one of the Ambassadors; and with him was joined Nicholas Witsen, a Burgomaster of Amsterdam, who seems to have been selected for the purpose of proving to all Europe that the long feud between the House of Orange and the chief city of Holland was at an end.
Dykvelt executed his commission with such dexterity, that all orders of men cast their eyes towards Holland, and expected thence a deliverance from those dangers with which their religion and liberty were so nearly threatened. Many of the most considerable persons, both in church and state, made secret applications to Dykvelt, and through him to the prince of Orange.
He however opened a negotiation with the States General through the intervention of Sweden and Denmark, and sent a confidential emissary to confer in secret at Brussels with Dykvelt, who possessed the entire confidence of William. There was much discussion about matters of secondary importance; but the great question remained unsettled.
Callieres then declared that he confirmed, in the name of his master, what Dykvelt had said. A letter from Prior, containing the good news, was delivered to James Vernon, the Under Secretary of State, in the House of Commons. The tidings ran along the benches such is Vernon's expression like fire in a field of stubble. A load was taken away from every heart; and all was joy and triumph.
The debate on this motion was repeatedly adjourned. While the event was doubtful, William sent Dykvelt to expostulate with Howe. Howe was obdurate. He was what is vulgarly called a disinterested man; that is to say, he valued money less than the pleasure of venting his spleen and of making a sensation.
But in truth his embassy was not to the government, but to the opposition; and his conduct was guided by private instructions which had been drawn by Burnet, and approved by William. Dykvelt reported that James was bitterly mortified by the conduct of the Prince and Princess. "My nephew's duty," said the King, "is to strengthen my hands. But he has always taken a pleasure in crossing me."
He was indeed in diplomatic talents and knowledge far inferior to Dykvelt: but even this inferiority had its advantages. A military man, who had never appeared to trouble himself about political affairs, could, without exciting any suspicion, hold with the English aristocracy an intercourse which, if he had been a noted master of state craft, would have been jealously watched.
He had strongly represented to the Prince of Orange the state of the public mind, and had advised his Highness to appear in England at the head of a strong body of troops, and to call the people to arms. William had seen, at a glance, the whole importance of the crisis. "Now or never," he exclaimed in Latin to Dykvelt.
Some of the chief functionaries of that city had been repeatedly closeted with him, with Dykvelt, and with Bentinck, and had been induced to promise that they would promote, or at least that they would not oppose, the great design: some were exasperated by the commercial edicts of Lewis: some were in deep distress for kinsmen and friends who were harassed by the French dragoons: some shrank from the responsibility of causing a schism which might be fatal to the Batavian federation; and some were afraid of the common people, who, stimulated by the exhortations of zealous preachers, were ready to execute summary justice on any traitor to the Protestant cause.
On the eighth of January Dykvelt and Witsen made their appearance at Westminster. William talked to them with a frankness and an effusion of heart which seldom appeared in his conversations with Englishmen. His first words were, "Well, and what do our friends at home say now?"
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