Extract uyt de politique conferentien, beginnende met het onwêer van den eersten januarij. Anno 1690. ...

each other that they would come off badly, as it was an impossible matter, with every plan of government having something good and something bad. However fiercely politicians quarrel, these two agreed on the matter, with Machiavelli wanting La Court to deliver the verdict, whether to deceive him, or to be able to bring forward another [example] if the first was rejected. After a short protestation of his sincerity, and that he would advise without bias, and not think of fables, scales, discourses, or maxims of State, he mentioned with a deep reverence for the required example, the City, or when considered in abstracto the abstract, the State of Amsterdam. Never did a bursting bomb in a city make as much noise as this word did on Parnassus. Even Apollo had to stop his ears, and could scarcely be heard through the waving, stomping, and gesturing: everyone wanted to show that La Court named Amsterdam out of passion, some citing failures of the Government, others mistakes, and actions one knew of the Regents. As high and low as this went, Machiavelli kept quiet until, demanded by Apollo, he judged the example uncontradictable. Suddenly there were those who began to shout that it was a riotous, changeable crowd of people, and seemed a popular government, yet was an arbitrary, "iamonarchal" likely a neologism implying "anti-monarchical" or a corruption of "monarchical" one in deed, that he could better ruin Princes than defend the good grounds of a government, that he was a charlatan and a bad Schoolmaster. Apollo, who is much plagued by lettered folk, and consequently by much hair-splitting, ordered that La Court should speak and everyone else should be silent. One needs (said he) no other arguments to demonstrate the good form of their Government than their current actions and conduct regarding the general State, and against their Stadtholder, as it would take too long for Your Serene Highness to hear of their beginning, growth, and frequent changes in political, ecclesiastical, and national affairs.

What concerns the Regents, they are qualified according to their Privileges, and chosen from the public Church, mostly the wealthiest, wisest, accustomed to keeping Word and Oath (say, for the sake of certainty, Machiavelli whispered in his ear, with a few exceptions), he then continued, with a few exceptions who are Roman Catholic, Arminian, others who through buying of office have become poor, others who have become half or one-and-a-half times mad, and some who trade an Office through the second or third hand, or are too closely related by blood to be a City Councilor. All of them, however, defend their Privileges like men of oaths. Upon this, Aristotle shouted his distinctio distinction between privilegien de nobilitate privileges of nobility and aliquiditate of some quality/minority. Item, between those given by the Sovereign for the Regents, or for the Community. Item, for or against Ecclesiastical Persons. Item, for or against the blood relatives of