and were ready to tear him to pieces in the streets. Men feared to
defend him lest they too should be accused of being stipendiaries of
Spain. It was a piteous spectacle; not for the venerable statesman
sitting alone there in his prison, but for the Republic in its lunacy,
for human nature in its meanness and shame. He whom Count Lewis,
although opposed to his politics, had so lately called one of the two
columns on which the whole fabric of the States reposed, Prince Maurice
being the other, now lay prostrate in the dust and reviled of all men.

"Many who had been promoted by him to high places," said a contemporary,
"and were wont to worship him as a god, in hope that he would lift them
up still higher, now deserted him, and ridiculed him, and joined the rest
of the world in heaping dirt upon him."

On the third day of his imprisonment the Advocate wrote this letter to
his family:--

"My very dear wife, children, children-in-law, and grandchildren,--I know
that you are sorrowful for the troubles which have come upon me, but I
beg you to seek consolation from God the Almighty and to comfort each
other. I know before the Lord God of having given no single lawful
reason for the misfortunes which have come upon me, and I will with
patience await from His Divine hand and from my lawful superiors a happy
issue, knowing well that you and my other well-wishers will with your
prayers and good offices do all that you can to that end.

"And so, very dear wife, children, children-in-law, and grandchildren, I
commend you to God's holy keeping.

"I have been thus far well and honourably treated and accommodated, for