by a nation's tears, the Viceroy held calmly to his purpose. To the keen
and vivid representations of Viglius, who repeatedly exhibited all that
was oppressive and all that was impossible in the tax, he answered simply
that it was nothing more nor less than the Spanish "alcabala," and that
he derived 50,000 ducats yearly from its imposition in his own city of
Alva.

Viglius was upon this occasion in opposition to the Duke. It is but
justice to state that the learned jurisconsult manfully and repeatedly
confronted the wrath of his superior in many a furious discussion in
council upon the subject. He had never essayed to snatch one brand from
the burning out of the vast holocaust of religious persecution, but he
was roused at last by the threatened destruction of all the material
interests of the land. He confronted the tyrant with courage, sustained
perhaps by the knowledge that the proposed plan was not the King's,
but the Governor's. He knew that it was openly ridiculed in Madrid,
and that Philip, although he would probably never denounce it in terms,
was certainly not eager for its execution. The President enlarged upon
the difference which existed between the condition of a sparsely-peopled
country of herdsmen and laborers in Spain, and the densely-thronged
and bustling cities of the Netherlands. If the Duke collected 50,000
ducats yearly from the alcabala in Alva, he could only offer him his
congratulations, but could not help assuring him that the tax would prove
an impossibility in the provinces. To his argument, that the impost
would fall with severity not upon the highest nor the lowest classes of
society, neither upon the great nobility and clergy nor on the rustic
population, but on the merchants and manufacturers, it was answered by
the President that it was not desirable to rob Saint Peter's altar in
order to build one to Saint Paul. It might have been simpler to suggest
that the consumer would pay the tax, supposing it were ever paid at all,