Note 1095 — Chapter III

The "Justification" has been very commonly attributed to the pen of the learned Languet, who was much in William's confidence, and is known to have been with him at this time. But William was too practised a writer, as Groen well suggests, to make it probable that he would trust the composition of a paper of such moment to any hand but his own. It is very likely that he submitted his own draft to the revision of Languet, whose political sagacity he well understood. And this is the most that can be fairly inferred from Languet's own account of the matter: "Fui Dillemburgi per duodecim et tredecim dies, ubi Princeps Orangiæ mihi et aliquot aliis curavit prolixe explicari causas et initia tumultuum in inferiore Germania et suam responsionem ad accusationes Albani." It fared with the prince's "Justification" as it did with the famous "Farewell Address" of Washington, so often attributed to another pen than his, but which, however much it may have been benefited by the counsels and corrections of others, bears on every page unequivocal marks of its genuineness.

The "Justification" called out several answers from the opposite party. Among them were two by Vargas and Del Rio. But in the judgment of Viglius—whose bias certainly did not lie on William's side—these answers were a failure. See his letter to Hopper (Epist. ad Hopperum, p. 458). The reader will find a full discussion of the matter by Groen, in the Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. III. p. 187.