article which could serve as a boat, were eagerly seized upon. Every
house was inundated; even the grave-yards gave up their dead. The living
infant in his cradle, and the long-buried corpse in his coffin, floated
side by side. The ancient flood seemed about to be renewed. Everywhere,
upon the top of trees, upon the steeples of churches, human beings were
clustered, praying to God for mercy, and to their fellow-men for
assistance. As the storm at last was subsiding, boats began to ply in
every direction, saving those who were still struggling in the water,
picking fugitives from roofs and tree-tops, and collecting the bodies of
those already drowned. Colonel Robles, Seigneur de Billy, formerly much
hated for his Spanish or Portuguese blood, made himself very active in
this humane work. By his exertions, and those of the troops belonging to
Groningen, many lives were rescued, and gratitude replaced the ancient
animosity. It was estimated that at least twenty thousand persons were
destroyed in the province of Friesland alone. Throughout the
Netherlands, one hundred thousand persons perished. The damage alone
to property, the number of animals engulfed in the sea, were almost
incalculable.

These events took place on the 1st and 2nd November, 1570. The former
happened to be the day of All Saints, and the Spaniards maintained loudly
that the vengeance of Heaven had descended upon the abode of heretics.
The Netherlanders looked upon the catastrophe as ominous of still
more terrible misfortunes in store for them. They seemed doomed to
destruction by God and man. An overwhelming tyranny had long been
chafing against their constitutional bulwarks, only to sweep over them at
last; and now the resistless ocean, impatient of man's feeble barriers,
had at last risen to reclaim his prey. Nature, as if disposed to put to
the blush the feeble cruelty of man, had thus wrought more havoc in a few
hours, than bigotry, however active, could effect in many years.