even this iniquitous decree gave great offence, by its leniency, to the people, who were fully persuaded of Cornelius De Witt's guilt. John De Witt meanwhile had recovered from his wounds; and finding that in the existing state of public feeling his continuance at the head of affairs was both undesirable for himself and unpleasing to the country, he resigned his office. After the promulgation of his brother's sentence, he went to receive him upon his delivery from prison; and probably to do him more honour, and testify his own sense of the malice of the charge, and the unworthiness of the treatment which he had received, repaired to the Hague in his coach and four, a sort of display which he was not wont to affect. This bravado proved still more unfortunate than ill-judged. The people, collected by the unusual spectacle, began to murmur at the presumption of one suspected traitor coming in state to insult the laws, and triumph in the escape of a traitor brother from a deserved death. De Witt went to the prison, to convey his brother to his own house; but Cornelius replied, that, having suffered so much, being innocent, he would not leave the prison as a culprit, but remain, and appeal against the sentence; a resolution which John De Witt strove in vain to shake. Meanwhile Tichelaer, the informer, was busily engaged in stirring up the populace to riot. Apprehending some disturbance, the States of Holland, which were then sitting at the Hague, requested the Prince of Orange to repair thither with a military force. Meanwhile the tumult spread from the lowest people to the burghers, and a furious mob collected round the gates of the prison where the brothers still remained. The military force which had been sent for did not arrive, and that which was in the city was drawn off, by written order from one or more of the magistrates, upon a false report, that a body of peasants was advancing to pillage the Hague. Actuated by fear, or some worse motive, the gaoler opened the gates, the leaders of the mob rushed in, the brothers were violently dragged from their chamber, and massacred as soon as they reached the street, with circumstances of brutality too revolting to be narrated in detail. Their corpses were dragged to the gibbet, and publicly suspended with the heads downwards; and the mangled limbs of these upright magistrates and patriotic citizens were offered for sale, and bought at prices of fifteen, twenty, and thirty sols.

Mr. Fox, in his " History of James II.," has made the following reflections on this event:"The catastrophe of De Witt, the wisest, best, and most truly patriotic minister that ever appeared upon the public stage, as it was an act of the most crying injustice and ingratitude, so likewise it is the most completely disencouraging example that history affords to the lovers of liberty. If Aristides was banished, he was also recalled: if Dion was repaid for his service to the Syracusans by ingratitude, that ingratitude was more than once repented of: if Sidney and Russell died upon the scaffold, they had not the cruel mortification of falling by the hands of the people; ample justice was done to their memory, and the very sound of their names is still animating to every Englishman attached to their glorious cause. But with De Witt fell also his cause and his party; and although a name so respected by all who revere virtue and wisdom when employed in their noblest sphere, the political service of the public, yet I do not know that even to this day any public honours have been paid by them to his memory."

After De Witt's death, all his papers were submitted to the most rigorous examination, in hope of discovering something which should confirm the popular notion of his being traitorously in league with France. One of the persons appointed to perform this service, being asked what had been found in De Witt's papers, replied, "What could we have found? Nothing but probity." To the moral qualities of integrity, intrepidity, and patience, he added intellectual endowments of the highest order: his perception was acute, his judgment solid; he possessed great skill and readiness in transacting business, and that persuasive influence over those who came in contact with him, which is perhaps the most serviceable gift of a statesman.

His manners, we are told by Sir William Temple ("Observations on the United Provinces," c. 11), were such as befitted his station and his principles. "His habit was grave, plain, and popular; his table, what only served turn for his family or a friend; his train was only one man, who performed all the menial service of his house at home, and upon his visits of ceremony, putting on a plain livery cloak, attended his coach abroad; for upon other occasions he was seen usually in the streets on foot and alone, like the commonest burgher of the town. Nor was this manner of life affected; but was the general fashion and mode among all the magistrates of the state."

De Witt cultivated mathematics, and published a "Treatise on Curves." Burnet says, "Perhaps no man ever applied algebra to all matters of trade so nicely as he did. He made himself so entirely master of the state of Holland, that he understood exactly all the concerns of their revenue, and what sums, and in what manner, could be raised upon any emergent of state. For this he had a pocket-book full of tables, and was ever ready to show how they could be furnished with money." 66 The most remarkable of his works are his Memoirs,"

published during his life in 1667, in which, after examining the principles which govern the prosperity and decline of states, he proceeds to apply them to Holland, and to review the condition and prospects of the country. They have been translated into French by Mad. Zoutelandt, who has also written a life of the two brothers. De Witt's correspondence with the plenipotentiaries of France, England, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland, has also been published, and translated into French.