table walls of Embden.[1075] Even in an inland city like Ghent,
half the houses, if we may credit the historian, were abandoned.[1076]
Not a family was there, he says, but some of its members had tasted the
bitterness of exile or of death.[1077] "The fury of persecution," writes
the prince of Orange, "spreads such horror throughout the nation, that
thousands, and among them some of the principal Papists, have fled a
country where tyranny seems to be directed against all, without
distinction of faith."[1078]

Yet in a financial point of view the results did not keep pace with
Alva's wishes. Notwithstanding the large amount of the confiscations,
the proceeds, as he complains to Philip, were absorbed in so many ways,
especially by the peculation of his agents, that he doubted whether the
expense would not come to more than the profits![1079] He was equally
dissatisfied with the conduct of other functionaries. The commissioners
sent into the provinces, instead of using their efforts to detect the
guilty, seemed disposed, he said, rather to conceal them. Even the
members of the Council of Troubles manifested so much apathy in their
vocation, as to give him more annoyance than the delinquents
themselves![1080] The only person who showed any zeal in the service was
Vargas. He was worth all the others of the council put together.[1081]
The duke might have excepted from this sweeping condemnation Hessels,
the lawyer of Ghent, if the rumors concerning him were true. This worthy
councillor, it is said, would sometimes fall asleep in his chair, worn
out by the fatigue of trying causes and signing death-warrants. In this
state, when suddenly called on to pronounce the doom of the prisoner, he
would cry out, half awake, and rubbing his eyes, "_Ad patibulum! Ad
patibulum!_"--"To the gallows! To the gallows!"[1082]

[Sidenote: RESULTS.]

But Vargas was after the duke's own heart. Alva was never weary of
commending his follower to the king. He besought Philip to interpose in
his behalf, and cause three suits which had been brought against that
functionary to be suspended during his absence from Spain. The king
accordingly addressed the judge on the subject. But the magistrate (his
name should have been preserved) had the independence to reply, that
"justice must take its course, and could not be suspended from favor to
any one." "Nor would I have it so," answered Philip, (it is the king who
tells it;) "I would do only what is possible