The ablest and busiest of the opposition-party, the "nimblest head" in the States-General was the ex-Advocate of Holland; Paul Buys. This man was then the foremost statesman in, the Netherlands. He had been the firmest friend to the English alliance; he had resigned his office when the States were-offering the sovereignty to France, and had been on the point of taking service in Denmark. He had afterwards been prominent in the legation which offered the sovereignty to Elizabeth, and, for a long time, had been the most firm, earnest, and eloquent advocate of the English policy. Leicester had originally courted him, caressed him, especially recommended him to the Queen's favour, given him money--as he said, "two hundred pounds sterling thick at a time"--and openly pronounced him to be "in ability above all men." "No man hath ever sought a man," he said, "as I have sought P. B." The period of their friendship was, however, very brief. Before many weeks had passed there was no vituperative epithet that Leicester was not in the daily habit of bestowing upon Paul. The Earl's vocabulary of abuse was not a limited one, but he exhausted it on the head of the Advocate. He lacked at last words and breath to utter what was like him. He pronounced his former friend "a very dangerous man, altogether hated of the people and the States;"--"a lewd sinner, nursled in revolutions; a most covetous, bribing fellow, caring for nothing but to bear the sway and grow rich;"--"a man who had played many parts, both lewd and audacious;"--"a very knave, a traitor to his country;"--"the most ungrateful wretch alive, a hater of the Queen and of all the English; a most unthankful man to her Majesty; a practiser to make himself rich and great, and nobody else;"--"among all villains the greatest;"-- "a bolsterer of all papists and ill men, a dissembler, a devil, an atheist," a "most naughty man, and a most notorious drunkard in the worst degree." Where the Earl hated, his hatred was apt to be deadly, and he was determined, if possible, to have the life of the detested Paul. "You shall see I will do well enough with him, and that shortly," he said. "I will course him as he was not so this twenty year. I will warrant him hanged and one or two of his fellows, but you must not tell your shirt of this yet;" and when he was congratulating the government on his having at length procured the execution of Captain Hemart, the surrenderer of Grave, he added, pithily, "and you shall hear that Mr. P. B. shall follow."