The insatiable monarchs overshot the mark.  Existence was not worth preserving on these intolerable terms.  Holland was driven to desperation; and even the people of England were inspired with indignation at this monstrous injustice.  In the republic a violent explosion of popular excess took place.  The people now saw no safety but in the courage and talents of the Prince of Orange.  He was tumultuously proclaimed stadtholder.  De Witt and his brother Cornelis, the conscientious but too obstinate opponents of this measure of salvation, fell victims to the popular frenzy.  The latter, condemned to banishment on an atrocious charge of intended assassination against the Prince of Orange, was visited in his prison at The Hague by the grand pensionary.  The rabble, incited to fury by the calumnies spread against these two virtuous citizens, broke into the prison, forced the unfortunate brothers into the street, and there literally tore them to pieces with circumstances of the most brutal ferocity.  This horrid scene took place on the 27th of August, 1672.

The massacre of the De Witts completely destroyed the party of which they were the head.  All men now united under the only leader left to the country.  William showed himself well worthy of the trust, and of his heroic blood.  He turned his whole force against the enemy.  He sought nothing for himself but the glory of saving his country; and taking his ancestors for models, in the best points of their respective characters, he combined prudence with energy, and firmness with moderation.  His spirit inspired all ranks of men.  The conditions of peace demanded by the partner kings were rejected with scorn.  The whole nation was moved by one concentrated principle of heroism; and it was even resolved to put the ancient notion of the first William into practice, and abandon the country to the waves, sooner than submit to the political annihilation with which it was threatened.  The capability of the vessels in their harbors was calculated; and they were found sufficient to transport two hundred thousand families to the Indian settlements.  We must hasten from this sublime picture of national desperation.  The glorious hero who stands in its foreground was inaccessible to every overture of corruption.  Buckingham, the English ambassador, offered him, on the part of England and France, the independent sovereignty of Holland, if he would abandon the other provinces to their grasp; and, urging his consent, asked him if he did not see that the republic was ruined?  “There is one means,” replied the Prince of Orange, “which will save me from the sight of my country’s ruin—­I will die in the last ditch.”