to the new canal which led to Brussels, where three barges were in
waiting for himself and suite. In one a banquet was spread; in the
second, adorned with emblematic devices and draped with the banners
of the seventeen provinces, he was to perform the brief journey; while
the third had been filled by the inevitable rhetoric societies, with all
the wonders of their dramatic and plastic ingenuity. Rarely had such
a complication of vices and virtues, of crushed dragons, victorious
archangels, broken fetters, and resurgent nationalities, been seen
before, within the limits of a single canal boat. The affection was,
however, sincere, and the spirit noble, even though the taste which
presided at these remonstrations may have been somewhat pedantic.

The Prince was met several miles before the gates of Brussels by a
procession of nearly half the inhabitants of the city, and thus escorted,
he entered the capital in the afternoon of the 23rd of September. It was
the proudest day of his life. The representatives of all the provinces,
supported by the most undeniable fervor of the united Netherland people,
greeted "Father William." Perplexed, discordant, hating, fearing,
doubting, they could believe nothing, respect nothing, love nothing, save
the "tranquil" Prince. His presence at that moment in Brussels was the
triumph of the people and of religious toleration. He meant to make use
of the crisis to extend and to secure popular rights, and to establish
the supremacy of the states-general under the nominal sovereignty of some
Prince, who was yet to be selected, while the executive body was to be a
state-council, appointed by the states-general. So far as appears, he
had not decided as to the future protector, but he had resolved that it
should be neither himself nor Philip of Spain. The outlaw came to
Brussels prepared at last to trample out a sovereignty which had worked
its own forfeiture. So far as he had made any election within his
breast, his choice inclined to the miserable Duke of Anjou; a prince whom