ber of corpses had not been completed. Two days
longer the havoc lasted in the city. Of all the crimes which men can
commit, whether from deliberate calculation or in the frenzy of passion,
hardly one was omitted, for riot, gaming, rape, which had been postponed
to the more stringent claims of robbery and murder, were now rapidly
added to the sum of atrocities. History has recorded the account
indelibly on her brazen tablets; it can be adjusted only at the
judgment-seat above.

Of all the deeds of darkness yet compassed in the Netherlands, this was
the worst. It was called The Spanish Fury, by which dread name it has
been known for ages. The city, which had been a world of wealth and
splendor, was changed to a charnel-house, and from that hour its
commercial prosperity was blasted. Other causes had silently girdled the
yet green and flourishing tree, but the Spanish Fury was the fire which
consumed it to ashes. Three thousand dead bodies were discovered in the
streets, as many more were estimated to have perished in the Scheld, and
nearly an equal number were burned or destroyed in other ways. Eight
thousand persons undoubtedly were put to death. Six millions of property
were destroyed by the fire, and at least as much more was obtained by the
Spaniards. In this enormous robbery no class of people was respected.
Foreign merchants, living under the express sanction and protection of
the Spanish monarch, were plundered with as little reserve as Flemings.
Ecclesiastics of the Roman Church were compelled to disgorge their wealth
as freely as Calvinists. The rich were made to contribute all their
abundance, and the poor what could be wrung from their poverty. Neither
paupers nor criminals were safe. Captain Caspar Ortis made a brilliant
speculation by taking possession of the Stein, or city prison, whence he
ransomed all the inmates who could find means to pay for their liberty.
Robbers, murderers, even Anabaptists, were thus again let loose. Rarely
has so small a band obtained in three days' robbery so large an amount of
wealth. Four or five millions divided among five thousand soldiers made
up for long arrearages, and the Spaniards had reason to congratulate
themselves upon having thus taken the duty of payment into their own
hands. It is true that the wages of iniquity were somewhat unequally
distributed, somewhat foolishly squandered. A private trooper was known
to lose ten thousand crowns in one day in a gambling transac