"There is a good deal of difference between them," Geoffrey said.
"Look at those three dark haired women with neat trim figures. They
do not look as if they belonged to the same race as the others."

"They are not of the same race, lad," Captain Vere, who was standing
close by, said. "The big heavy women are Flemish, the others come, no
doubt, from the Walloon provinces bordering on France. The Walloons
broke off from the rest of the states and joined the Spanish
almost from the first. They were for the most part Catholics, and
had little in common with the people of the Low Country; but there
were, of course, many Protestants among them, and these were forced
to emigrate, for the Spanish allow no Protestants in the country
under their rule. Alva adopted the short and easy plan of murdering
all the Protestants in the towns he took; but the war is now
conducted on rather more humane principles, and the Protestants
have the option given them of changing their faith or leaving the
country.

"In this way, without intending it, the Spaniards have done good
service to Holland, for hundreds of thousands of industrious people
have flocked there for shelter from Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and
other cities that have fallen into the hands of the Spaniards,
thus greatly raising the population of Holland, and adding to its
power of defence. Besides this, the presence of these exiles, and
the knowledge that a similar fate awaits themselves if they fall
again under the yoke of Spain, nerves the people to resist to
the utmost. Had it not been for the bigotry of the Spanish, and
the abominable cruelties practised by the Inquisition, the States
would never have rebelled; and even after they did so, terms might
easily have been made with them had they not been maddened by the