rack, or in the
weariness of a long living interment, to acknowledge transgressions
which, perhaps, had never been committed, or at least had never come
to the knowledge of his judges. The goods of the condemned were
confiscated, and the informer encouraged by letters of grace and
rewards. No privilege, no civil jurisdiction was valid against the holy
power; the secular arm lost forever all whom that power had once
touched. Its only share in the judicial duties of the latter was to
execute its sentences with humble submissiveness. The consequences of
such an institution were, of necessity, unnatural and horrible; the
whole temporal happiness, the life itself, of an innocent man was at
the mercy of any worthless fellow. Every secret enemy, every envious
person, had now the perilous temptation of an unseen and unfailing
revenge. The security of property, the sincerity of intercourse were
gone; all the ties of interest were dissolved; all of blood and of
affection were irreparably broken. An infectious distrust envenomed
social life; the dreaded presence of a spy terrified the eye from
seeing, and choked the voice in the midst of utterance. No one believed
in the existence of an honest man, or passed for one himself. Good
name, the ties of country, brotherhood, even oaths, and all that man
holds sacred, were fallen in estimation. Such was the destiny to which
a great and flourishing commercial town was subjected, where one hundred
thousand industrious men had been brought together by the single tie of
mutual confidence,--every one indispensable to his neighbor, yet every
one distrusted and distrustful,--all attracted by the spirit of gain,
and repelled from each other by fear,--all the props of society torn
away, where social union was the basis of all life and all existence.

OTHER ENCROACHMENTS ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE NETHERLANDS.

No wonder if so unnatural a tribunal, which had proved intolerable even
to the more submissive spirit of the Spaniard, drove a free state to
rebellion. But the terror which it inspired was increased by the
Spanish troops, which, even after the restoration of peace, were kept in
the country, and, in violation of the constitution, garrisoned border
towns. Charles V. had been forgiven for this introduction of foreign
troops so long as the necessity of it was evident, and his good
intentions were less distrusted. But now men saw in these troops only
the alarming preparations of oppre