too should perish rather than that they should pay tribute to the enemy.
Scorning the capitulation of the commandant of the citadel, he ordered
the fleet to be set on fire. Thirty-two ships, most of them vessels of
war of the highest class, were burned, with all their equipments. Twelve
hundred cannon sunk at once to the bottom of the Bay of Cadiz, besides
arms for five or six thousand men. At least one-third of Philip's
effective navy was thus destroyed.

The victors now sacked the city very thoroughly, but the results
were disappointing. A large portion of the portable wealth of the
inhabitants, their gold and their jewelry, had been so cunningly
concealed that, although half a dozen persons were tortured till they
should reveal hidden treasures, not more than five hundred thousand
ducats worth of-plunder was obtained. Another sum of equal amount
having been levied upon the citizens; forty notable personages; among
them eighteen ecclesiastical dignitaries, were carried off as hostages
for its payment. The city was now set on fire by command of Essex in
four different quarters. Especially the cathedral and other churches,
the convents and the hospitals, were burned. It was perhaps not
unnatural: that both Englishmen and Hollanders should be disposed to
wreak a barbarous vengeance on everything representative of the Church
which they abhorred, and from which such endless misery had issued to
the, uttermost corners of their own countries. But it is at any rate
refreshing to record amid these acts of pillage and destruction, in
which, as must ever be the case, the innocent and the lowly were made
to suffer for the crimes of crowned and mitred culprits, that not many
special acts of cruelty were committed upon individuals:

No man was murdered in cold blood, no woman was outraged. The beautiful
city was left a desolate and blackened ruin, and a general levy of spoil