iles; he was refreshed with the spectacle of a gibbet well
garnished with dangling freebooters; and rejoiced, therefore, in
comparative security. For it seemed that the energetic bailiff of
Waasland had levied a contribution upon the proprietors of the country,
to be expended mainly in hanging brigands; and so well had the funds been
applied, that no predatory bands could make their appearance but they
were instantly pursued by soldiers, and hanged forthwith, without judge
or trial. Cecil counted twelve such places of execution on his road
between Ghent and Antwerp.

On his journey he fell in with an Italian merchant,--Lanfranchi by name,
of a great commercial house in Antwerp, in the days when Antwerp had
commerce, and by him, on his arrival the same evening in that town, he
was made an honoured guest, both for his father's sake and his Queen's.
"'Tis the pleasantest city that ever I saw," said Cecil, "for situation
and building; but utterly left and abandoned now by those rich merchants
that were wont to frequent the place."

His host was much interested in the peace-negotiations, and indeed,
through his relations with Champagny and Andreas de Loo, had been one of
the instruments by which it had been commenced. He inveighed bitterly
against the Spanish captains and soldiers, to whose rapacity and ferocity
he mainly ascribed the continuance of the war;--and he was especially
incensed with Stanley and other--English renegades, who were thought
fiercer haters of England than were the Spaniards themselves: Even in the
desolate and abject condition of Antwerp and its neighbourhood, at that
moment, the quick eye of Cecil detected the latent signs of a possible
splendour. Should peace be restored, the territory once more be tilled,
and the foreign merchants attracted thither again, he believed that the
governor of the obedient Netherlands might live there in more
magnificence than the King of Spain himself, exhausted as were his
revenues by the enormous expense of this protracted war: Eight hundred
thousand dollars monthly; so Lanfranchi informed Cecil, were the costs of
the forces on the footing then established. This, however, was probably
an exaggeration, for the royal account books showed a less formidable
sum, although a sufficiently large one to appal a less obstinate bigot
than Philip. But what to him were the ruin of the Netherlands; the
impoverishment of Spain, and the downfall of her ancient grandeur
compared to t