his object
he despatched a letter in November to the great council of Antwerp, in
which he skilfully made use of every topic likely to induce the citizens
to come to terms, or at least to increase their existing dissensions.
He treated them in this letter in the light of persons who had been led
astray, and threw the whole blame of their revolt and refractory conduct
hitherto upon the intriguing spirit of the Prince of Orange, from whose
artifices the retributive justice of heaven had so lately liberated
them. "It was," he said, "now in their power to awake from their long
infatuation and return to their allegiance to a monarch who was ready
and anxious to be reconciled to his subjects. For this end he gladly
offered himself as mediator, as he had never ceased to love a country in
which he had been born, and where he had spent the happiest days of his
youth. He therefore exhorted them to send plenipotentiaries with whom
he could arrange the conditions of peace, and gave them hopes of
obtaining reasonable terms if they made a timely submission, but also
threatened them with the severest treatment if they pushed matters to
extremity."

This letter, in which we are glad to recognize a language very different
from that which the Duke of Alva held ten years before on a similar
occasion, was answered by the townspeople in a respectful and dignified
tone. While they did full justice to the personal character of the
prince, and acknowledged his favorable intentions towards them with
gratitude, they lamented the hardness of the times, which placed it out
of his power to treat them in accordance with his character and
disposition. They declared that they would gladly place their fate in
his hands if he were absolute master of his actions, instead of being
obliged to obey the will of another, whose proceedings his own candor
would not allow him to approve of. The unalterable resolution of the
King of Spain, as well as the vow which he had made to the pope, were
only too well known for them to have any hopes in that quarter. They at
the same time defended with a noble warmth the memory of the Prince of
Orange, their benefactor and preserver, while they enumerated the true
cases which had produced this unhappy war, and had caused the provinces
to revolt from the Spanish crown. At the same time they did not
disguise from him that they had hopes of finding a new and a milder
master in the King of France, and that, if only for this rea