th lame
and unhandsome. As for the correspondence with the colonels, his defence
was hardly more successful, and rested upon a general recrimination upon
the Prince of Orange. As that personage was agitating and turbulent, it
was not possible, the Governor urged, that he should himself remain
quiet. It was out of his power to execute the treaty and the edict, in
the face of a notorious omission on the part of his adversary to enforce
the one or to publish the other. It comported neither with his dignity
nor his safety to lay down his weapons while the Prince and his adherents
were arming. He should have placed himself "in a very foolish position,"
had he allowed himself unarmed to be dictated to by the armed. In defence
of himself on the third point, the seizure of Namur Castle, he recounted
the various circumstances with which the reader is already acquainted. He
laid particular stress upon the dramatic manner in which the Vicomte De
Gand had drawn his curtains at the dead of night; he narrated at great
length the ominous warning which he had likewise received from the Duke
of Aerschot in Brussels, and concluded with a circumstantial account of
the ambush which he believed to have been laid for him by Count De
Lalain. The letter concluded with a hope for an arrangement of
difficulties, not yet admitted by the Governor to be insurmountable, and
with a request for a formal conference, accompanied by an exchange of
hostages.

While this correspondence was proceeding between Namur and Brussels, an
event was occurring in Antwerp which gave much satisfaction to Orange.
The Spanish Fury, and the recent unsuccessful attempt of Don John to
master the famous citadel, had determined the authorities to take the
counsel which the Prince had so often given in vain, and the fortress of
Antwerp was at length razed to the ground, on the side towards the
city.--It would be more correct to say that it was not the authorities,
but the city itself which rose at last and threw off the saddle by which
it had so long been galled. More than ten thousand persons were
constantly at work, morning, noon, and night, until the demolition was
accomplished. Grave magistrates, great nobles, fair ladies, citizens and
their wives, beggars and their children, all wrought together pell-mell.
All were anxious to have a hand in destroying the nest where so many
murders had been hatched, whence so much desolation had flown. The task
was not a long one for wor