History of the United Netherlands, 1607a | Page 6

the Canaries, or along the Portuguese coast; having first
made a brief visit to Tetuan, where they were rapturously received by
the Bey.
The Hollanders lost no ships, and but one hundred seamen were killed.
Two vessels were despatched homeward directly, one with sixty
wounded sailors, the other with the embalmed body of the fallen
Heemskerk. The hero was honoured with a magnificent funeral in
Amsterdam at the public expense--the first instance in the history of the

republic--and his name was enrolled on the most precious page of her
records.
[The chief authorities for this remarkable battle are Meteren, 547, 548.
Grotius, xvi. 731-738. Wagenaar, ix. 251-258.]

CHAPTER XLVIII
.
Internal condition of Spain--Character of the people--Influence of the
Inquisition--Population and Revenue--Incomes of Church and
Government--Degradation of Labour--Expulsion of the Moors and its
consequences--Venality the special characteristic of Spanish polity
--Maxims of the foreign polity of Spain--The Spanish army and navy--
Insolvent state of the Government--The Duke of Lerma--His position in
the State--Origin of his power--System of bribery and
trafficking--Philip III. His character--Domestic life of the king and
queen.
A glance at the interior condition of Spain, now that there had been
more than nine years of a new reign, should no longer be deferred.
Spain was still superstitiously regarded as the leading power of the
world, although foiled in all its fantastic and gigantic schemes. It was
still supposed, according to current dogma, to share with the Ottoman
empire the dominion of the earth. A series of fortunate marriages
having united many of the richest and fairest portions of Europe under
a single sceptre, it was popularly believed in a period when men were
not much given as yet to examine very deeply the principles of human
governments or the causes of national greatness, that an aggregation of
powers which had resulted from preposterous laws of succession really
constituted a mighty empire, founded by genius and valour.
The Spanish people, endowed with an acute and exuberant genius,
which had exhibited itself in many paths of literature, science, and art;
with a singular aptitude for military adventure, organization, and
achievement; with a great variety, in short, of splendid and ennobling
qualities; had been, for a long succession of years, accursed with almost
the very worst political institutions known to history. The depth of their
misery and of their degradation was hardly yet known to themselves,
and this was perhaps the most hideous proof of the tyranny of which

they had been the victims. To the outward world, the hollow fabric, out
of which the whole pith and strength had been slowly gnawed away,
was imposing and majestic still. But the priest, the soldier, and the
courtier had been busy too long, and had done their work too
thoroughly, to leave much hope of arresting the universal decay.
Nor did there seem any probability that the attempt would be made.
It is always difficult to reform wide-spread abuses, even when they are
acknowledged to exist, but when gigantic vices are proudly pointed to
as the noblest of institutions and as the very foundations of the state,
there seems nothing for the patriot to long for but the deluge.
It was acknowledged that the Spanish population--having a very large
admixture of those races which, because not Catholic at heart, were
stigmatized as miscreants, heretics, pagans, and, generally, as accursed-
-was by nature singularly prone to religious innovation. Had it not been
for the Holy Inquisition, it was the opinion of acute and thoughtful
observers in the beginning of the seventeenth century, that the
infamous heresies of Luther, Calvin, and the rest, would have long
before taken possession of the land. To that most blessed establishment
it was owing that Spain had not polluted itself in the filth and ordure of
the Reformation, and had been spared the horrible fate which had
befallen large portions of Germany, France, Britain, and other
barbarous northern nations. It was conscientiously and thankfully
believed in Spain, two centuries ago, that the state had been saved from
political and moral ruin by that admirable machine which detected
heretics with unerring accuracy, burned them when detected, and
consigned their descendants to political incapacity and social infamy to
the remotest generation.
As the awful consequences of religious freedom, men pointed with a
shudder to the condition of nations already speeding on the road to ruin,
from which the two peninsulas at least had been saved. Yet the British
empire, with the American republic still an embryo in its bosom,
France, North Germany, and other great powers, had hardly then begun
their headlong career. Whether the road of religious liberty was leading
exactly to political ruin, the coming centuries were to judge.
Enough has been said in former chapters for the characterization of
Philip II. and his polity. But there had now