family party, as he did to the management of the family business or the ownership of the family ships. During the first few years of the history of the republic, while the issue of the war with Spain was still doubtful, the military necessities of the country forced the House of Orange into prominence, and kept the republican spirit in check. [Sidenote: =Growth of the Republican Party.=] But as political dangers from outside grew less serious, and the wealth and importance of the citizen traders became by far the most important factors of the national life, the political preponderance of the republican party, who drew their strength from the merchant class, soon threatened to be decisive. The province of Holland, which was republican to a man, assumed an unquestioned lead in the national councils. It alone had the right of appointing a representative at the courts of Paris and Vienna. It alone paid more than half the national taxes. It alone provided nearly the whole of the national fleet. [Sidenote: =Olden Barneveldt.=]Partly owing to these circumstances, partly to his own abilities, as early as the beginning of the century the Advocate of the province of Holland, John Olden Barneveldt, had insensibly become the foremost statesman of the republic. In theory he was only the spokesman or first minister of the provincial estates of Holland, in fact he was the leader of the republican party and for a few years virtual ruler of the republic. He it was who negotiated with foreign states and determined the national policy. Already then it seemed as if the supreme power in the republic had shifted from the stadtholder and the House of Orange to the representative of the republican merchants of Amsterdam. But Maurice, prince of Orange, the second son of William the Silent, was not going to let power slip out of his hands so easily. Taking advantage of a quarrel between Barneveldt and his staunch ally and protector Henry IV., he very skilfully managed to direct upon him, left thus defenceless, the whole weight of the cruelty and fanaticism of the Calvinistic clergy. [Sidenote: =Execution of Barneveldt brought about by Maurice of Nassau, 1610.=] By a crime, more atrocious than that of the assassination of his own father, because of the hypocrisy which accompanied it, he brought Barneveldt to the scaffold in 1610 by a sentence of judicial murder.