sting--of the whole discovered
world and of the ocean. I have been assisted by study of the best works
of geography and history, by my own labours, and by those of my late
father, a man of illustrious genius and heroical conceptions and very
zealous in the Catholic faith."

The modest and practical son of an illustrious but anonymous father, then
coming to the point, said it would be the easiest thing in the world to
direct the course of the Scheldt into an entirely new channel through
Spanish Flanders to the sea. Thus the Dutch ports and forts which had
been constructed with such magnificence and at such vast expense would be
left high and dry; the Spaniards would build new ones in Flanders, and
thus control the whole navigation and deprive the Hollanders of that
empire of the sea which they now so proudly arrogated. This scheme was
much simpler to carry out than the vulgar might suppose, and, when.
accomplished, it would destroy the commerce, navigation, and fisheries of
the Hollanders, throwing it all into the hands of the Archdukes. This
would cause such ruin, poverty, and tumults everywhere that all would be
changed. The Republic of the United States would annihilate itself and
fall to pieces; the religious dissensions, the war of one sect with
another, and the jealousy of the House of Nassau, suspected of plans
hostile to popular liberties, finishing the work of destruction. "Then
the Republic," said the man of universal science, warming at sight of the
picture he was painting, "laden with debt and steeped in poverty, will
fall to the ground of its own weight, and thus debilitated will crawl
humbly to place itself in the paternal hands of the illustrious house of
Austria."

It would be better, he thought, to set about the work, before the
expiration of the Truce. At any rate, the preparation for it, or the mere
threat of it, would ensure a renewal of that treaty on juster terms. It
was most important too to begin at once the construction of a port on the
coast of Flanders, looking to the north.

There was a position, he said, without naming it, in which whole navies
could ride in safety, secure from all tempests, beyond the reach of the
Hollanders, open at all times to traffic to and from England, France,
Spain, Norway, Sweden, Russia--a perfectly free commerce, beyond the
reach of any rights or duties claimed or levied by the insolent republic.
In this port would assemble all the navigators of the country, and