The Revolt of The Netherlands, book 1 | Page 6

Spanish power declined the
republic rose in fresh vigor. The ravages which the fanaticism of the
new religion, the tyranny of the Inquisition, the furious rapacity of the
soldiery, and the miseries of a long war unbroken by any interval of
peace, made in the provinces of Brabant, Flanders, and Hainault, at
once the arsenals and the magazines of this expensive contest, naturally
rendered it every year more difficult to support and recruit the royal
armies. The Catholic Netherlands had already lost a million of citizens,
and the trodden fields maintained their husbandmen no longer. Spain
itself had but few more men to spare. That country, surprised by a
sudden affluence which brought idleness with it, had lost much of its
population, and could not long support the continual drafts of men
which were required both for the New World and the Netherlands. Of
these conscripts few ever saw their country again; and these few having
left it as youths returned to it infirm and old. Gold, which had become
more common, made soldiers proportionately dearer; the growing
charm of effeminacy enhanced the price of the opposite virtues. Wholly
different was the posture of affairs with the rebels. The thousands
whom the cruelty of the viceroy expelled from the southern
Netherlands, the Huguenots whom the wars of persecution drove from
France, as well as every one whom constraint of conscience exiled
from the other parts of Europe, all alike flocked to unite themselves
with the Belgian insurgents. The whole Christian world was their
recruiting ground. The fanaticism both of the persecutor and the
persecuted worked in their behalf. The enthusiasm of a doctrine newly
embraced, revenge, want, and hopeless misery drew to their standard
adventurers from every part of Europe. All whom the new doctrine had
won, all who had suffered, or had still cause of fear from despotism,
linked their own fortunes with those of the new republic. Every injury
inflicted by a tyrant gave a right of citizenship in Holland. Men pressed
towards a country where liberty raised her spirit-stirring banner, where
respect and security were insured to a fugitive religion, and even
revenge on the oppressor. If we consider the conflux in the present day
of people to Holland, seeking by their entrance upon her territory to be
reinvested in their rights as men, what must it have been at a time when
the rest of Europe groaned under a heavy bondage, when Amsterdam

was nearly the only free port for all opinions? Many hundred families
sought a refuge for their wealth in a land which the ocean and domestic
concord powerfully combined to protect. The republican army
maintained its full complement without the plough being stripped of
hands to work it. Amid the clash of arms trade and industry flourished,
and the peaceful citizen enjoyed in anticipation the fruits of liberty
which foreign blood was to purchase for them. At the very time when
the republic of Holland was struggling for existence she extended her
dominions beyond the ocean, and was quietly occupied in erecting her
East Indian Empire.
Moreover, Spain maintained this expensive war with dead,
unfructifying gold, that never returned into the hand which gave it
away, while it raised to her the price of every necessary. The treasuries
of the republic were industry and commerce. Time lessened the one
whilst it multiplied the other, and exactly in the same proportion that
the resources of the Spanish government became exhausted by the long
continuance of the war the republic began to reap a richer harvest. Its
field was sown sparingly with the choice seed which bore fruit, though
late, yet a hundredfold; but the tree from which Philip gathered fruit
was a fallen trunk which never again became verdant.
Philip's adverse destiny decreed that all the treasures which he lavished
for the oppression of the Provinces should contribute to enrich them.
The continual outlay of Spanish gold had diffused riches and luxury
throughout Europe; but the increasing wants of Europe were supplied
chiefly by the Netherlanders, who were masters of the commerce of the
known world, and who by their dealings fixed the price of all
merchandise. Even during the war Philip could not prohibit his own
subjects from trading with the republic; nay, he could not even desire it.
He himself furnished the rebels with the means of defraying the
expenses of their own defence; for the very war which was to ruin them
increased the sale of their goods. The enormous suns expended on his
fleets and armies flowed for the most part into the exchequer of the
republic, which was more or less connected with the commercial places
of Flanders and Brabant. Whatever Philip attempted against the rebels
operated indirectly to their advantage.
The sluggish progress of this war did the king