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 ambassadors, aware that the States
had made no provision to oppose this formidable armament, reluctantly
acquiesced;[c] and on the 5th of April, after a negotiation of ten months,
the peace was definitively signed.[2]
By this treaty the English cabinet silently abandoned those lofty
pretensions which it had originally put forth. It made no mention of
indemnity for the past, of security for the future, of the incorporation
of the two states, of the claim of search, of the tenth herring, or of the
exclusion of the prince of Orange
[Footnote 1: Basnage, i. 289.]
[Footnote 2: Thurloe, i. 570, 607, 616, 624, 643, 650; ii. 9, 19, 28,
36, 74, 75, 123, 137, 195, 197. Le Clerc. i, 340-343. During the whole
negotiation, it appears from these papers that the despatches of, and to,
the ambassadors were opened, and copies of almost all the resolutions taken
by the States procured, by the council of state.
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