the king
showed to have his Spaniards in the country the more obstinately the
states insisted on their removal. In the following Diet at Ghent he was
compelled, in the very midst of his courtiers, to listen to republican
truth. "Why are foreign hands needed for our defence?" demanded the
Syndic of Ghent. "Is it that the rest of the world should consider us
too stupid, or too cowardly, to protect ourselves? Why have we made
peace if the burdens of war are still to oppress us? In war necessity
enforced endurance; in peace our patience is exhausted by its burdens.
Or shall we be able to keep in order these licentious bands which thine
own presence could not restrain? Here, Cambray and Antwerp cry for
redress; there, Thionville and Marienburg lie waste; and, surely, thou
hast not bestowed upon us peace that our cities should become deserts,
as they necessarily must if thou freest them not from these destroyers?
Perhaps then art anxious to guard against surprise from our neighbors?
This precaution is wise; but the report of their preparations will long
outrun their hostilities. Why incur a heavy expense to engage
foreigners who will not care for a country which they must leave
to-morrow? Hast thou not still at thy command the same brave
Netherlanders to whom thy father entrusted the republic in far more
troubled times? Why shouldest thou now doubt their loyalty, which, to
thy ancestors, they have preserved for so many centuries inviolate?
Will not they be sufficient to sustain the war long enough to give time
to thy confederates to join their banners, or to thyself to send succor
from the neighboring country?" This language was too new to the king,
and its truth too obvious for him to be able at once to reply to it.
"I, also, am a foreigner," he at length exclaimed, "and they would like,
I suppose, to expel me from the country!" At the same time he descended
from the throne, and left the assembly; but the speaker was pardoned for
his boldness. Two days afterwards he sent a message to the states that
if he had been apprised earlier that these troops were a burden to them
he would have immediately made preparation to remove them with himself
to Spain. Now it was too late, for they would not depart unpaid; but he
pledged them his most sacred promise that they should not be oppressed
with this burden more than four months. Nevertheless, the troops
remained in this country eighteen months instead of four; and would not,
perhaps, e