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On the 20th of August, 1672, the city of The Hague was crowded in every street with a mob of people, all armed with knives, muskets, or sticks, and all hurrying towards the Buytenhof. Within that terrible prison was Cornelius de Witt, brother of John de Witt, the ex-Grand Pensionary of Holland.
He was a native of Dordrecht and became pensionary of that town, and, though not distinguished as a statesman or politician, he was so much respected for his prudence and moderation that for twenty-two years he filled the important office of Council-Pensionary of Holland and was twice sent as an Envoy Extraordinary to England.
It was successively governed, but always under the overpowering controul of France, by a Convention, a Directory, and a Consul, with the appellation of Grand Pensionary.
September 3, 1618, the fourth day after he was arrested, the Burgomasters of Rotterdam presented a petition to the Prince of Orange , setting forth, that they had heard with great grief that Grotius, Counsellor and Pensionary of Rotterdam, being at the Hague at the assembly of the States, was arrested by order of the States General; and representing to his Excellency that it was a breach of privilege, by which no Deputy could be arrested during the sitting of the States; and as they stood in need of Grotius's assistance and counsels, praying that he, as Governor of Holland and West-Friesland, would prevail with the States General to set him at liberty, and put him in the same situation he was in before his imprisonment, promising to guard him at Rotterdam or elsewhere, that he might be forthcoming to answer any charge brought against him by the States General.
The states-general breathed nothing but war; the pensionary Heinsius pronounced an oration in their assembly, representing the impossibility of concluding a peace without losing the fruits of all the blood and treasure they had expended.
The riots which had already happened, and which they hourly apprehended, made the Grand Pensionary Barnevelt propose to the States of Holland, that the magistrates of the Cities of the Province should be impowered to raise troops for the suppression of the rioters, and the security of their towns.
But it was unanswerably argued by the pensionary that the manufacture of cloth was one of those ancient and natural sources of wealth which England had ravished from the Netherlands, and which the latter was justified in recovering by every effort consistent with national honor and fair principles of government.
If, when you were Pensionary of Holland, intelligence had been brought that the dykes were ready to break and the sea was coming in to overwhelm and to drown us, what would you have said to one of the deputies who, when you were proposing the proper repairs to stop the inundation, should have objected to the charge as too heavy on the Province?
Some pretended that the whole was paid down beforehand, being advanced by a society of merchants at Amsterdam, the friends or relatives of the grand pensionary; others, that it is to be paid by annual instalments of two millions of livres for a certain number of years.
This demand of government was met by a peremptory refusal. Noircarmes, towards the middle of December, ordered the magistrates to send a deputation to confer with him at Conde. Pensionary Outreman accordingly repaired to that neighboring city, accompanied by some of his colleagues. This committee was not unfavorable to the demands of government.
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