This Stadtholder was, originally, the representative of the Count, or the Sovereign, but at the period of which we are treating, he was elected by a body called the " States-Provincial" of each Province, which consisted of deputies elected by the Boards of Managers and Nobles of the Province. These " States Provincial" managed all the affairs of each Province for itself, the Provinces in their domestic concerns being entirely independent of each other. They were the representative assemblies of the numerous Municipalities and Nobles of which each Province was composed. The "States Provincial" had also conferred upon them, another, and most important, power, one which then existed in no other part of the civilized world. For neither in the Swiss republic, nor in the Italian republics of the middle ages, did a precisely similar power exist. This was the election of envoys to the Supreme Legislature of the republic, -- the States General. The members of this body so elected were not representatives in the usual sense of that term but envoys from their respective Provinces to the Supreme Parliament of the nation, in which each Province, though it could have as many envoys as it pleased, had but one vote. These envoys were bound by instructions in writing from their constituents the " States Provincial," whom they were obliged to consult in all doubtful or new matters before acting upon them. Neither war nor peace could be made, nor troops nor money raised, without a unanimous vote of the whole seven Provinces by their envoys in the States-General. The title of this Supreme Council of Parliament of the Republic, was " The High and Mighty Lords the States -General." It received ambassadors, appointed its own to other nations, and conducted, wholly, the foreign relations of the republic. Each Province, by one of its deputies or envoys presided in turn for a week.