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

( 8 )

Lipsius, that civil banishment, looks very much like an uncivil, monarchical custom. Synonyms! Synonyms! cried Plato, others, the same thing by the same name! others, that is one and the same thing. La Court, on the contrary, Customs! Customs! Privilege! Privilege! Meanwhile, the time for parting had come: they departed with the agreement to meet again within a few days, when La Court undertook to speak about the abolition of certain Privileges, and from the portraits of certain Regents, to show their virtues and merits to the world: Apollo concluding that not only in Amsterdam, but in all States and Kingdoms, a Regent or Citizen who wishes to fulfill his oath and promote welfare, must hate and oppose the troublemakers and firebrands, who are ignorant of how to govern peoples and at the same time protect their welfare, or those who, out of riot and civil war, seek to obtain their own greatness, status, and offices, under whatever title they may hide: for just as a heretic does not lack a letter, a troublemaker does not lack a pretext. It behooves everyone, and now especially the inhabitants of Amsterdam, to stifle emerging domestic disputes: for they, or anyone else, cannot, to their own detriment, do a greater service to the King of France original: "Koning van Vranckrijck" (even if one gave him no further knowledge of matters) than to give him knowledge of their disunity with the State and the Stadtholder; unless, perhaps, the fear of seeing his armies on our borders and before their gates has already taken away all sense of mine and thine. Recently, everyone called him a sword, sharpened for the destruction of Europe; now many call him the balance, by which Amsterdam can come into equilibrium with the entire State and Stadtholder; it is to be feared that before long, people will be found who will honor him as one carrying a sword and a scale, for Justice.

Handwritten note in the bottom left margin: "3463/7".