4 James Muilenburg 



Fruin, in his treatment of the period, has an interesting bit of 

 evidence which comes to us from the post-revolutionary days. 

 It shows how another of Dykvelt's contemporaries regarded him. 

 Burnet, in the presence of the eminent Dutch statesman, Witsen, 

 suggested that the people of England should erect a statue to 

 Dykvelt for his services to that kingdom. Witsen replied that 

 Dykvelt in his embassy had laid the foundation of the Revolution. 3 



Many statements of Burnet have led Dalrymple to believe that 

 the Revolution was already contemplated at this time. A 

 strangely enigmatic passage in one important letter in his 

 Kensington collection drives him to the rather hasty conclusion 

 that the affair of 1688 was fully designed during Dykvelt's 

 embassy in London. 4 



Macaulay, not more careful but surely more prejudiced, says, 

 concerning the Prince of Orange and the Revolution, "There is 

 not the least reason to believe that he at this time meditated the 

 great enterprise to which a stern necessity afterwards drove him." 5 

 The dictum of Ranke is as follows: "The letters which Dykvelt 

 brought with him, though far from causing us to admit that an 

 agreement had already been concluded, yet comprise the germ of 

 such an agreement. (The italics are mine.) They rest on the 

 presumption of an inward harmony, and agree with the religious 

 and political attitude which the Prince had up to that time 

 maintained." 6 Klopp is more concrete and specific: "With the 

 decision to send Dykvelt the opposition of the Prince of Orange 

 in England begins, — it is the offensive against King James." 7 



3 Fruin, Verspreide Geschriften, p. 156, note 2. 



"Burnet, die er over oordeelen kon, getuigde ten aanhooren van Witsen na de 

 Revolutie, 'dat Dijkveld verdiende dat men in Engeland hem een standbeeld 

 oprichtte om de diensten, die hij het Rijk gedaan had,' en Witsen self meende, dat 

 Dijkveld in zijn ambassade 'de nooten van het geheele werk gesteld had.' " (Schel- 

 tema, Mengelwerk, III, 2e st., biz. 135, 139.) 



4 Dalrymple, Memoirs, vol. ii, Appendix to Part the First, p. 180. 

 s Macaulay, History of England, vol. ii, p. 844. 



6 Ranke, History of England, vol. iv, p. 331. 



7 Klopp, Der Fall des Hauses Stuart, vol. iii, p. 283. 



"Mit dem Beschliisse der Sendung von Dykvelt beginnt das Entgegen-Wirken 

 des Prinzen von Oranien in England, die Offensiv-Stellung gegen den Konig Jacob 

 II." 



88 



