156 THE END OF THE STRUGGLE Speult's son, whom Towerson has rescued at sea, plots with the fiscal against the life of his preserver, and, after again being saved from death by Towerson, rav- ishes the Englishman's bride and is thereupon killed by him in a duel. Van Speult, in revenge, invents the story of the plot. The victims are tortured on the stage, fiercely reviled by the governor, and led off to execution. On his way to death Towerson breaks forth in a prophetic strain, foretelling the vengeance of his countrymen and the ruin and downfall of the Dutch. The characters are coarsely drawn from the 11 True Relation; " the picture presented of the Dutch is grossly unfair. But it struck a chord of popular feel- ing, and responded to an antipathy which had hardened and set into a national tradition. That tradition not only affected our internal and dy- nastic politics, but it profoundly influenced the march of events in Europe. If Holland and England had been friends at heart instead of occasional allies by interest, the aggressions of Louis XTV would have encountered a very different strength of resistance. Our Charles II would scarcely have dared to remain the dependent of France. James II would perhaps have shrunk from forcing a Catholic reaction on England. The memory of Amboyna wrought like a fever on the trade-rivalry of the two Protestant sea powers. The friendship of France might mean court corruption and Popery, but between England and Holland, as long as that bloody memory lived, there could be no real friendship at all. Politicians and poets appealed to the middle-class
