While De Witt was kept at home by his wounds, the people of Holland demanded universally the repeal of the perpetual edict, as it was called, by which the Prince of Orange was for ever excluded from the stadtholdership of that province; and it was accordingly repealed. Cornelius De Witt, the brother of John, a man distinguished both in the naval and civil service of his country, was with difficulty induced to sign the revocation of the edict. When told that an armed crowd surrounded his house, threatening his life, if he did not consent to the repeal, “So many bullets,” he said, “passed over my head in the late engagement, that I have no fear left, and I would rather wait for another than sign this paper.” Shortly after, this brave and manly soldier was charged with being concerned in a plot to murder the Prince of Orange. The informer and only witness, Tichelaer, was a person of infamous character; yet on such evidence as this Cornelius De Witt was thrown into prison at the Hague, and cruelly tortured to extort confession of a plot, the very existence of which, without such a forced confession, could not be established. He bore the trial with unshaken constancy, protesting that if they cut him to pieces, they should not make him confess a thing which he had never even thought of. It is said that under the hands of the executioner he repeated the celebrated lines of Horace— Justum et tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor prava jubentium, Non vultus instantis tyranni, Mente quatit solida, &c. Finding it impossible to extort a confession, the court before which he was tried proceeded to pass sentence to the following effect: “The Court of Holland, having examined the documents presented to it by the public prosecutor, the examinations and cross–examinations of the prisoner, and his defence, and having examined all that can throw light on this matter, declares the prisoner stripped of all his offices and dignities, banishes him from the provinces of Holland and West Friesland, without leave ever to return on pain of a severer punishment, and orders him to pay the costs of the prosecution.”[171]