arrived in that which permitted a free indulgence to his ferocious
and sanguinary career.

For some time after Philip's departure, the Netherlands continued
to enjoy considerable prosperity. From the period of the Peace
of Câteau-Cambresis, commerce and navigation had acquired new
and increasing activity. The fisheries, but particularly that of
herrings, became daily more important; that one alone occupying
two thousand boats. While Holland, Zealand and Friesland made this
progress in their peculiar branches of industry, the southern
provinces were not less active or successful. Spain and the colonies
offered such a mart for the objects of their manufacture that
in a single year they received from Flanders fifty large ships
filled with articles of household furniture and utensils. The
exportation of woollen goods amounted to enormous sums. Bruges
alone sold annually to the amount of four million florins of
stuffs of Spanish, and as much of English, wool; and the least
value of the florin then was quadruple its present worth. The
commerce with England, though less important than that with Spain,
was calculated yearly at twenty-four million florins, which was
chiefly clear profit to the Netherlands, as their exportations
consisted almost entirely of objects of their own manufacture.
Their commercial relations with France, Germany, Italy, Portugal,
and the Levant, were daily increasing. Antwerp was the centre of
this prodigious trade. Several sovereigns, among others Elizabeth
of England, had recognized agents in that city, equivalent to
consuls of the present times; and loans of immense amount were
frequently negotiated by them with wealthy merchants, who furnished
them, not in negotiable bills or for unredeemable debentures,
but in solid gold, and on a simple acknowledgment.