"I dare also assure myself, that your High Mightinesses will consider my proceeding in the same point of light, and that they will agree with me, that it is of the highest importance to know, if he, whom your High Mightinesses have clothed with the dignity of Field Maréchal, whom they have engaged and continued in their service in the manner abovementioned, is in fact the true cause of the deplorable state of the weakness of the Republic, of all the negligence they suppose to have taken place, of all the false steps, that they say have been taken, and of all the unhappy consequences, that have resulted from them. Your High Mightinesses are to examine in the most exact manner, things so interesting, and to see if this person is the source of the distrust and disunion; for what reasons he would be totally unuseful and prejudicial to the service of the State and of his Highness; what are the proofs of his want of affection to the country; in one word, for what reason he should be hereafter unworthy of the confidence of the Prince, who is placed at the head of this Republic, to whose testimony I here take the liberty of appealing; finally, for what reason he hath merited to be removed from the person of his Highness, and of his Court, as a perpetual obstacle to the good intelligence between his Highness and the Court. "And as my honor is more dear to me than life, and as I am attacked in a part so sensible, it is also for this reason, and in consideration of that, which I owe to myself even, and to the relations, which I have as well with this State and to your High Mightinesses, as to those which I still have with his Imperial and Royal Majesty, to which otherwise I should be too much wanting, that I see myself obliged to address myself to your High Mightinesses, and by them to all the confederates, to supplicate them respectfully, and to insist in the most express manner, that your High Mightinesses would deign, after the most severe and scrupulous examination, to take such measures in protecting efficaciously the character, which your High Mightinesses have confided to me, that I may be justified in a proper manner from the blame, that the abovementioned proceeding hath cast upon me, and that so sensible an affront as hath been offered me by it, may be suitably repaired; that to this end it may please your High Mightinesses to direct things in such a manner, that the four reigning Burgomasters of Amsterdam, who have caused to be delivered in their name the said Memorial, according to the letter of Burgomaster Rendorp, be obliged, as well as the Pensionary Vischer, to allege the reasons they have had of injuring me so grievously as they have done by the said proceeding, and by the accusation, therein contained, and to verify the whole in a suitable manner, which I cannot but consider all that, which is there said as calumnies, and that they may be obliged, moreover, to specify more precisely the other heads of