Every one who has this paper before him must know that we, the undersigned, have been duly and sufficiently warned and informed that there is a great crowd of foreigners – men without any concern for the safety and prosperity of the provinces in the Netherlands, with no care for God's glory and honour or for the commonweal, driven only by private avarice and ambition, even to the disadvantage of the king and all his subjects – who pretend to be zealous for the maintenance of the Catholic religion and the union of the people and have managed to persuade His Majesty by their well-turned remonstrances and false information to violate his oath and to disappoint the expectations he has always let us cherish, by not only failing to mitigate the edicts already in force, but by reinforcing them and even by introducing the inquisition in all its strength. Not only is this inquisition iniquitous and against all divine and human laws, surpassing the worst barbarism ever practised by tyrants, it will also most certainly lead to the dishonouring of God's name and to the utter ruin and desolation of these Netherlands.