Flushing, and Flushing was in the firm grasp of Sir Philip Sidney, as
governor for the English Queen. Merchants and bankers, who had lately
been possessed of enormous resources, were stripped of all. Such of the
industrial classes as could leave the place had wandered away to Holland
and England. There was no industry possible, for there was no market for
the products of industry. Antwerp was hemmed in by the enemy on every
side, surrounded by royal troops in a condition of open mutiny, cut off
from the ocean, deprived of daily bread, and yet obliged to contribute
out of its poverty to the maintenance of the Spanish soldiers, who were
there for its destruction. Its burghers, compelled to furnish four
hundred thousand florins, as the price of their capitulation, and at
least six hundred thousand more for the repairs of the dykes, the
destruction of which, too long deferred, had only spread desolation over
the country without saving the city, and over and above all forced to
rebuild, at their own expense, that fatal citadel, by which their liberty
and lives were to be perpetually endangered, might now regret at leisure
that they had not been as stedfast during their siege as had been the
heroic inhabitants of Leyden in their time of trial, twelve years before.
Obedient Antwerp was, in truth, most forlorn. But there was one
consolation for her and for Philip, one bright spot in the else universal
gloom. The ecclesiastics assured Parma, that, notwithstanding the
frightful diminution in the population of the city, they had confessed
and absolved more persons that Easter than they had ever done since the
commencement of the revolt. Great was Philip's joy in consequence.
"You cannot imagine my satisfaction," he wrote, "at the news you give me
concerning last Easter."

With a ruined country, starving and mutinous troops, a bankrupt
exchequer, and a desperate and pauper population, Alexander Farnese was
not unwilling to gain time by simulated negotiations for peace. It was