"In those pieces, which I have just now literally related, your High Mightinesses will perceive, and probably not without indignation, that after a train of reflections, each more injurious than the other, in which there is no accusation against me as Field Maréchal, and which, moreover, are only grounded upon pretended public sentiments and reports artfully circulated, that nevertheless the gentlemen, the Burgomasters, have judged it necessary to insist that his Highness would remove me from his person and Court, in a manner the most disgraceful, and condemn me without further examination, as a criminal attainted and convicted to dishonorable exile. "I cannot then but consider a proceeding, accompanied with so many odious and humiliating expressions, which is not made by simple individuals, but a deputation of two reigning Burgomasters, with the Pensionary of one of the most considerable cities of Holland, in the name and by the order of the Regency of that city, (according to the terms of the memorial, although according to the letter whereof I have spoken of the Burgomaster Rendorp, it was only in the name of the gentlemen, the Burgomasters of that city) and that in a formal manner, after mature deliberation, and after having confirmed this action in the most injurious manner, by taking back the memorial, and causing it to be sent to his Highness, I cannot, I say, but consider this proceeding as wounding, in the most violent manner, my character and my person; and in this same writing, where they dare not specify any crime to my charge, and where they are obliged to acknowledge the falsity of the reports which have circulated against me, and of the suspicions of an excessive and illicit attachment to the English Court, of bad faith and of corruption, they appear, notwithstanding, to give credit to these calumnies, and to be willing to cast upon me the blame of the evils of the times, to the end, to exculpate those who are the true causes of it. I should think myself unworthy of bearing any longer the character that your High Mightinesses have confided to me, if I testified upon this article an indifference or an insensibility.