But Alva would not abandon his design till he had forced every
province into resistance, and the king himself commanded him to
desist. The events of this and the following year, 1570, may
be shortly summed up; none of any striking interest or eventual
importance having occurred. The sufferings of the country were
increasing from day to day under the intolerable tyranny which
bore it down. The patriots attempted nothing on land; but their
naval force began from this time to acquire that consistency
and power which was so soon to render it the chief means of
resistance and the great source of wealth. The privateers or
corsairs, which began to swarm from every port in Holland and
Zealand, and which found refuge in all those of England, sullied
many gallant exploits by instances of culpable excess; so much
so that the Prince of Orange was forced to withdraw the command
which he had delegated to the lord of Dolhain, and to replace
him by Gislain de Fiennes: for already several of the exiled
nobles and ruined merchants of Antwerp and Amsterdam had joined
these bold adventurers; and purchased or built, with the remnant
of their fortunes, many vessels, in which they carried on a most
productive warfare against Spanish commerce through the whole
extent of the English Channel, from the mouth of the Embs to
the harbor of La Rochelle.

One of those frightful inundations to which the northern provinces
were so constantly exposed occurred this year, carrying away
the dikes, and destroying lives and properly to a considerable
amount. In Friesland alone twenty thousand men were victims to this
calamity. But no suffering could affect the inflexible sternness of
the duke of Alva; and to such excess did he carry his persecution
that Philip himself began to be discontented, and thought his
representative was overstepping the bounds of delegated tyranny.
He even reproached him sharply in some of his despatches. The
governor replied in the same strain; and such was the effect of
this correspondence that Philip resolved to remove him from his
command. But the king's marriage with Anne of Austria, daughter
of the emperor Maximilian, obliged him to defer his intentions
for a while; and he at length named John de la Cerda, duke of
Medina-Celi, for Alva's successor. Upward of a year, however,
elapsed before this new governor was finally appointed; and he
made his appearance on the coast of Flanders with a considerable
fleet, on the 11th of Ma