were actively employed throughout the whole of these transactions, with
wine, brandy, and other incitements to inflame their already maddening
fury. Led on by Verhoef and one Van Bankhem, a sheriff of The Hague,
they assailed the prison door with axes and sledge-hammers, threatening
to kill all the inmates if it were not instantly opened. Terrified,
or corrupted, the gaoler obeyed their behests. On gaining admittance
they rushed to an upper room, where they found their victims,
who had throughout the whole of the tumult maintained the greatest
composure. The bailiff, reduced to a state of extreme debility by the
torture, was reclining on his bed; his brother was seated near him,
reading the Bible. They forced them to rise and follow them 'to the
place,' as they said, 'where criminals were executed'.

"Having taken a tender leave of each other, they began to descend the
stairs, Cornelius de Witt leaning on his brother for support. They had
not advanced above two or three paces when a heavy blow on the head
from behind precipitated the former to the bottom. He was then dragged
a short distance towards the street, trampled under foot, and beaten
to death. Meanwhile, John de Witt, after receiving a severe wound
on the head with the butt-end of a musket, was brought by Verhoef,
bleeding and bare-headed, before the furious multitude. One Van
Soenen immediately thrust a pike into his face, while another of the
miscreants shot him in the neck, exclaiming as he fell, 'There goes
down the Perpetual Edict'. Raising himself on his knees, the sufferer
lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven in deep and earnest prayer. At
that moment, one Verhagen struck him with his musket. Hundreds followed
his example, and the cruel massacre was completed.

"Barbarities too dreadful for utterance or contemplation, all that
phrenzied passion or brutal ferocity could suggest, were perpetrated
on the bodies of these noble and virtuous citizens; nor was it till
night put an end to the butchery, that their friends were permitted
to convey their mangled remains to a secret and obscure tomb."

In the Nieuwe Kerk at The Hague the tomb of the De Witts may be seen
and honoured.

The Gevangenpoort is well worth a visit. One passes tortuously from
cell to cell--most of them associated with some famous breaker of
the laws of God or man, principally of man. Here you may see a stone
hollowed by the drops of water that plashed from the prisoner's head,
on wh