of
pay, and greedy for the booty which had been denied. At times, however,
the fury of the soldiery was more violently directed against their own
commanders than against the enemy. A project was even formed by the
malcontent troops to deliver Harlem into the hands of Orange. A party of
them, disguised as Baltic merchants, waited upon the Prince at Delft, and
were secretly admitted to his bedside before he had risen. They declared
to him that they were Spanish soldiers, who had compassion on his cause,
were dissatisfied with their own government, and were ready, upon receipt
of forty thousand guilders, to deliver the city into his hands. The
Prince took the matter into consideration, and promised to accept the
offer if he could raise the required sum. This, however, he found himself
unable to do within the stipulated time, and thus, for want of so paltry
a sum, the offer was of necessity declined.

Various were the excesses committed by the insubordinate troops in every
province in the Netherlands upon the long-suffering inhabitants.
"Nothing," wrote Alva, "had given him so much pain during his forty years
of service." He avowed his determination to go to Amsterdam in order to
offer himself as a hostage to the soldiery, if by so doing he could quell
the mutiny. He went to Amsterdam accordingly, where by his exertions,
ably seconded by those of the Marquis Vitelli, and by the payment of
thirty crowns to each soldier--fourteen on account of arrearages and
sixteen as his share in the Harlem compensation money--the rebellion was
appeased, and obedience restored.

There was now leisure for the General to devote his whole energies
against the little city of Alkmaar. On that bank and shoal, the extreme
verge of habitable earth, the spirit of Holland's Freedom stood at bay.
The grey towers of Egmont Castle and of Egmont Abbey rose between the
city and the sea, and there the troops sent by the Prince of Orange were
quartered during the very brief period in which the citizens wavered as
to receiving them. The die was soon cast, however, and the Prince's
garrison admitted. The Spaniards advanced, burned the village of Egmont
to the ground as soon as the patriots had left it, and on the 21st of
August Don Frederic, appearing before the walls, proceeded formally to
invest Allanaar. In a few days this had been so thoroughly accomplished
that, in Alva's language, "it was impossible for a sparrow to enter or go
out of the city." The od