ient wealthy seat of the fallen Moors,--Toledo,
Valladolid, and Lisbon, chief city of the recently conquered kingdom of
Portugal, counting, with its suburbs, a larger population than any city,
excepting Paris, in Europe, the mother of distant colonies, and the
capital of the rapidly developing traffic with both the Indies: these
were some of the treasures of Spain herself. But she possessed Sicily
also, the better portion of Italy, and important dependencies in Africa,
while the famous maritime discoveries of the age had all inured to her
aggrandizement.

"The world seemed suddenly to have expanded its wings from East to West
only to bear the fortunate Spanish Empire to the most dizzy heights of
wealth and power. The most accomplished generals, the most disciplined
and daring infantry the world has ever known, the best-equipped and most
extensive navy, royal and mercantile, of the age, were at the absolute
command of the sovereign. Such was Spain.

"Turn now to the north-western corner of Europe. A morsel of territory,
attached by a slight sand-hook to the continent, and half-submerged by
the stormy waters of the German Ocean: this was Holland. A rude climate,
with long, dark, rigorous winters and brief summers,--a territory, the
mere wash of three great rivers, which had fertilized happier portions
of Europe only to desolate and overwhelm this less-favored land,--a soil
so ungrateful, that, if the whole of its four hundred thousand acres of
arable land had been sowed with grain, it could not feed the laborers
alone,--and a population largely estimated at one million of souls:
these were the characteristics of the province which already had
begun to give its name to the new commonwealth. The isles of
Zealand--entangled in the coils of deep, slow-moving rivers, or
combating the ocean without--and the ancient episcopate of Utrecht,
formed the only other provinces that had quite shaken off the foreign
yoke. In Friesland, the important city of Groningen was still held for
the King; while Bois-le-Duc, Zutphen, besides other places in Gelderland
and North Brabant, also in possession of the royalists, made the
position of those provinces precarious."

The safety of the Netherlands appeared to depend so entirely on their
success in gaining the assistance of foreign powers, that it is not
surprising that the Estates eagerly offered the sovereignty of the
country, first to France and then to England. The details of the
negotia