"Your Electoral Highness, the states of the duchy of Cleves send us to seek succor from you their liege lord in this time of their necessity and distress. On all sides we are oppressed by soldiers, and perpetually in danger of being seized and consumed by one or other of the contending potentates, princes, and lords. In the Netherlands the contest is still going on between the States and the Spaniards, and daily threatens to involve us in the calamities and perils of war, and equally alarming to us is the neighborhood of the Imperial and Swedish troops. Oppressed by all, downtrodden by all, there is only one assured means of deliverance. It is this, that your highness nominate the Electoral Prince stadtholder of the duchy of Cleves, and permit him to take up his residence among the trusty people of Cleves." "Just tell me, you wise and prudent deputies from Cleves, what advantage can accrue to you from the stadtholdership of the Electoral Prince?" asked the Elector hastily. "And how far would that go in furnishing redress for your difficulties?" "So far as this, your highness, that our stadtholder would shield and protect us against the encroachments of inimical powers, and by his openly expressed neutrality secure us against the claims of all parties. The salvation of the duchy depends wholly and solely upon our having a neutral chief resident among us, and we beseech and implore your Electoral Highness to grant us such an one in the Electoral Prince, and to send his lordship your son to the duchy armed with plenipotentiary powers.[1] It is for the second time that the states of Cleves appeal with this earnest, humble entreaty to the heart of their liege lord, and most urgently we beg that this time we may have a hearing." "Are you done, or have you anything further to say?" asked the Elector impatiently. "Your highness, only this have we to say besides, that the Prince of Orange has promised to support our petition to your Electoral Highness, and that he also is of opinion that the welfare of Cleves depends upon her possessing a ruler, resident in the land and neutral."