brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore,
to my great dishonor. . . . I implore your highnesses to forgive my
complaints. I am, indeed, in as ruined a condition as I have related;
hitherto I have wept over others-may Heaven now have mercy upon me,
and may the earth weep for me. With regard to temporal things, I have
not even a blanca for an offering, and in spiritual things, I have
ceased here in the Indies from observing the prescribed forms of
religion. Solitary in my trouble, sick, and in daily expectation of
death, surrounded by millions of hostile savages full of cruelty, and
thus separated from the blessed sacraments of our holy church, how
will my soul be forgotten if it be separated from the body in this
foreign land! Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth, and justice!"

_Ellen Coit Brown._




CHAPTER VI.

_DEFENCE OF FREEDOM ON DUTCH DIKES._

1. After the destruction of the Roman Empire all Europe was in a state
of anarchy. The long domination of Rome, and the general acceptance of
the Roman idea that "the state is everything and the individual man
nothing," had unfitted the people for self-government. While Rome
fell, the system of Rome, leading to absolute monarchy, persisted, and
out of it grew the present governments of Europe. The conquering Goths
brought in a modifying condition which changed the whole relations of
monarch to people. In their social and political relations chieftains