s to the
rights of the nation.[1018]

It soon became apparent, that, as in most proscriptions, wealth was the
mark at which persecution was mainly directed. At least, if it did not
actually form a ground of accusation, it greatly enhanced the chances of
a conviction. The commissioners sent to the provinces received written
instructions to ascertain the exact amount of property belonging to the
suspected parties. The expense incident to the maintenance of so many
officials, as well as of a large military force, pressed heavily on the
government; and Alva soon found it necessary to ask for support from
Madrid. It was in vain he attempted to obtain a loan from the merchants.
"They refuse," he writes; "to advance a _real_ on the security of the
confiscations, till they see how _the game_ we have begun is likely to
prosper!"[1019]

In another letter to Philip, dated on the twenty-fourth of October,
Alva, expressing his regret at the necessity of demanding supplies, says
that the Low Countries ought to maintain themselves, and be no tax upon
Spain. He is constantly thwarted by the duchess, and by the council of
finance, in his appropriation of the confiscated property. Could he only
manage things in his own way, he would answer for it that the Flemish
cities, uncertain and anxious as to their fate, would readily acquiesce
in the fair means of raising a revenue proposed by the king.[1020] The
ambitious general, eager to secure the sole authority to himself,
artfully touched on the topic which would be most likely to operate with
his master. In a note on this passage, in his own handwriting, Philip
remarked that this was but just; but as he feared that supplies would
never be raised with the consent of the states, Alva must devise some
expedient by which their consent in the matter might be dispensed with,
and communicate it _privately_ to him.[1021] This pregnant thought he
soon after develops more fully in a letter to the duke.[1022]--It is
edifying to observe the cool manner in which the king and his general
discuss the best means for filching a revenue from the pockets of the
good people of the Netherlands.

[Sidenote: GENERAL PROSECUTIONS.]

Margaret,--whose name now rarely appears,--scandalized by the plan
avowed of wholesale persecution, and satisfied that blood enough had
been shed already, would fain have urged her brother to grant a general
pardon. But to this the duke strongly objected. "He would have every
man,