sick bed, for the besieged city of Leyden-will always remain monuments of his practical military skill.

blem by which his friends expressed
their sense of his firmness. A prince of
high rank and with royal revenues,
he stripped himself of station, wealth,
almost at times of the common neces-
saries of life, and became, in his coun-
try's cause, nearly a beggar as well as
an outlaw. Ten years after his death,
the account between his executors and
his brother John amounted to one mil- 10
lion four hundred thousand florins due
to the Count, secured by various
pledges of real and personal property,
and it was finally settled upon this
basis. He was besides largely indebted
to every one of his powerful relatives,
so that the payment of the encum-
brances upon his estate very nearly
justified the fears of his children.
While on the one hand, therefore, he 20 that he always wrought with inferior

poured out these enormous sums like
water, and firmly refused a hearing to
the tempting offers of the royal gov-
ernment, upon the other hand he
proved the disinterested nature of his
services by declining, year after year,
the sovereignty over the provinces;
and by only accepting, in the last days
of his life, when refusal had become
almost impossible, the limited, consti- 30
tutional supremacy over that portion
of them which now makes the realm of
his descendants. He lived and died,
not for himself, but for his country:
"God pity this poor people!" were his
dying words.

His intellectual faculties were vari-
ous and of the highest order. He had
the exact, practical, and combining
qualities which make the great com- 40
mander, and his friends claimed that,
in military genius, he was second to
no captain in Europe. This was, no
doubt, an exaggeration of partial at-
tachment, but it is certain that the
Emperor Charles had an exalted opin-
ion of his capacity for the field. His
fortification of Philippeville and
Charlemont, in the face of the enemy
-his passage of the Meuse in Alva's 50
sight his unfortunate but well ordered
campaign against that general-his
sublime plan of relief, projected and
successfully directed at last from his

Of the soldier's great virtues-constancy in disaster, devotion to duty, hopefulness in defeat-no man ever possessed a larger share. He arrived, through a series of reverses, at a perfect victory. He planted a free commonwealth under the very battery of the Inquisition in defiance of the most powerful empire existing. He was, therefore, a conqueror in the loftiest sense, for he conquered liberty and a national existence for a whole people. The contest was long, and he fell in the struggle, but the victory was to the dead hero, not to the living monarch. It is to be remembered, too,

instruments. His troops were usually mercenaries, who were but too apt to mutiny upon the eve of battle, while he was opposed by the most formidable veterans of Europe, commanded successively by the first captains of the age. That, with no lieutenant of eminent valour or experience, save only his brother Louis, and with none at all. after that chieftain's death, William of Orange should succeed in baffling the efforts of Alva, Requesens, Don John of Austria, and Alexander Farnesemen whose names are among the most brilliant in the military annals of the world is in itself sufficient evidence of his warlike ability. At the period. of his death he had reduced the number of obedient provinces to two, only Artois and Hainault acknowledging Philip, while the other fifteen were in open revolt, the greater part having solemnly forsworn their sovereign.

The supremacy of his political genius was entirely beyond question. He was the first statesman of the age. The quickness of his perception was only equalled by the caution which enabled him to mature the results of his observations. His knowledge of human nature was profound. He governed the passions and sentiments of a great nation as if they had been but the keys and chords of one vast instrument; and

his hand rarely failed to evoke harmony even out of the wildest storms. The turbulent city of Ghent, which could obey no other master, which even the haughty Emperor could only crush without controlling, was ever responsive to the master hand of Orange. His presence scared away Imbize and his bat-like crew, confounded the schemes of John Casimir, frustrated the wiles of Prince Chimay, and while he lived, Ghent was what it ought always to have remained, the bulwark, as it had been the cradle, of popular liberty. After his death it became its tomb.

10

warmth of sentiment, a breadth of view, a directness of purpose-a range of qualities, in short, which would in themselves have stamped him as one of the master-minds of his century, had there been no other monument to his memory than the remains of his spoken or written eloquence. The bulk of his performances in this department was prodigious. Not even Philip was more industrious in the cabinet. Not even Granvelle held a more facile pen. He wrote and spoke equally well in French, German, or Flemish; and he possessed, besides, Spanish, Italian, Latin. The weight of his correspondence alone would have almost sufficed for the common industry of a lifetime, and although many volumes of his speeches and letters have been published, there remain in the various archives of the Netherlands and Germany many documents from his hand which will probably never see the light. The efforts made to destroy the Netherlands by the most laborious and painstaking of tyrants were counteracted by the industry of the most indefatigable of patriots.

His power of dealing with his fellow-men he manifested in the various ways in which it has been usually exhibited by statesmen. He possessed a ready eloquence-sometimes impas- 20 sioned, oftener argumentative, always rational. His influence over his audience was unexampled in the annals of that country or age; yet he never condescended to flatter the people. He never followed the nation, but always led her in the path of duty and of honour, and was much more prone to rebuke the vices than to pander to the passions of his hearers. He never 30 failed to administer ample chastisement to parsimony, to jealousy, to insubordination, to intolerance, to infidelity, wherever it was due, nor feared to confront the states or the people in their most angry hours, and to tell them the truth to their faces. While, therefore, he was ever ready to rebuke, and always too honest to flatter, he at the same time possessed the eloquence 40 which could convince or persuade. He knew how to reach both the mind and the heart of his hearers. His orations, whether extemporaneous or prepared -his written messages to the statesgeneral, to the provincial authorities, to the municipal bodies-his private correspondence with men of all ranks, from Emperors and Kings down to secretaries and even children-all show 50 skein of human motives, and detect an easy flow of language, a fulness of thought, a power of expression rare in that age, a fund of historical allusion, a considerable power of imagination, a

It is difficult to find many characteristics deserving of grave censure, but his enemies have adopted a simpler process. They have been able to detect few flaws in his nature, and therefore have denounced it in gross. It is not that his character was here and there defective, but that the eternal jewel was false. The patriotism was counterfeit; the self-abnegation and the generosity were counterfeit. was governed only by ambition-by a desire of personal advancement. They never attempted to deny his talents, his industry, his vast sacrifices of wealth and station; but they ridiculed. the idea that he could have been inspired by any but unworthy motives. God alone knows the heart of man. He alone can unweave the tangled

He

the hidden springs of human action, but as far as can be judged by a careful observation of undisputed facts, and by a diligent collation of public

and private documents, it would seem that no man-not even Washingtonhas ever been inspired by a purer patriotism. At any rate, the charge of ambition and self-seeking can only be answered by a reference to the whole picture which these volumes have attempted to portray. The words, the deeds of the man are there. As much as possible, his inmost soul is revealed in his confidential letters, and he who looks in a right spirit will hardly fail to find what he desires.

death found so perfect that a long life might have been in store for him, notwithstanding all which he had endured. The desperate illness of 1574, the frightful gunshot wound inflicted by Jaureguy in 1582, had left no traces. The physicians pronounced that his body presented an aspect of perfect health. His temperament was 10 cheerful. At table, the pleasures of which, in moderation, were his only relaxation, he was always animated and merry, and this jocoseness was partly natural, partly intentional. In the darkest hours of his country's trial, he affected a serenity which he was far from feeling, so that his apparent gaiety at momentous epochs was even censured by dullards, who could not comprehend its philosophy, nor applaud the flippancy of William the Silent.

20

Whether originally of a timid temperament or not, he was certainly possessed of perfect courage at last. In siege and battle-in the deadly air of pestilential cities-in the long exhaustion of mind and body which comes from unduly protracted labour and anxiety-amid the countless conspiracies of assassins-he was daily exposed to death in every shape. Within two He went through life bearing the load years, five different attempts against of a people's sorrows upon his shoulhis life had been discovered. Rank ders with a smiling face. Their name and fortune were offered to any male- was the last word upon his lips, save factor who would compass the mur- the simple affirmative, with which the der. He had already been shot through soldier who had been battling for the the head, and almost mortally right all his lifetime, commended his wounded. Under such circumstances 30 soul in dying "to his great captain, even a brave man might have seen Christ." The people were grateful and a pitfall at every step, a dagger in affectionate, for they trusted the charevery hand, and poison in every cup. acter of their "Father William," and On the contrary he was ever cheer- not all the clouds which calumny could ful, and hardly took more precaution collect ever dimmed to their eyes the than usual. "God in his mercy," said radiance of that lofty mind to which he, with unaffected simplicity, "will they were accustomed, in their darkmaintain my innocence and my honour est calamities, to look for light. As during my life and in future ages. As long as he lived, he was the guidingto my fortune and my life, I have 40 star of a brave nation, and when he dedicated both, long since, to His serv- Idied the little children cried in the ice. He will do therewith what pleases streets. Him for His glory and my salvation." Thus his suspicions were not even excited by the ominous face of Gérard, when he first presented himself at the dining-room door. The Prince laughed. off his wife's prophetic apprehension at the sight of his murderer, and was as cheerful as usual to the last.

He possessed, too, that which to the heathen philosopher seemed the greatest good-the sound mind in the sound body. His physical frame was after

50

FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823-1893)

From THE CONSPIRACY OF
PONTIAC
CHAPTER IV

COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES

The people of the northern English colonies had learned to regard their

Canadian neighbours with the bitterest enmity. With them, the very name of Canada called up horrible recollections and ghastly images: the midnight midnight massacre of Schenectady, and the desolation of many a New England hamlet; blazing dwellings and reeking scalps; and children snatched from their mothers' arms, to be immured in con

reach of the French, had heard with great composure of the sufferings of their New England brethren, and felt little concern at a danger so doubtful and remote. There were those among them, however, who, with greater foresight, had been quick to perceive the ambitious projects of the French; and, as early as 1716, Spotswood, governor

of securing the valley of the Ohio by a series of forts and settlements. His proposal was coldly listened to, and his plan fell to the ground. The time at length was come when the danger was approaching too near to be slighted longer. In 1748, an association, called the Ohio Company, was formed, with the view of making settlements in the region beyond the Alleghanies; and two years later, Gist, the company's surveyor, to the great disgust of the Indians, carried chain and compass down the Ohio as far as the falls at Louisville. But so dilatory were the English, that before any effectual steps were taken, their agile enemies appeared upon the scene.

vents and trained up in the heresies of 10 of Virginia, had urged the expediency Popery. To the sons of the Puritans, their enemy was doubly odious. They hated him as a Frenchman, and they hated him as a Papist. Hitherto he Hitherto he had waged his murderous warfare from a distance, wasting their settlements with rapid onsets, fierce and transient as a summer storm; but now, with enterprising audacity, he was entrenching himself on their very borders. The 20 English hunter, in the lonely wilderness of Vermont, as by the warm glow of sunset he piled the spruce boughs for his woodland bed, started as a deep, low sound struck faintly on his ear, the evening gun of Fort Frederic, booming over lake and forest. The erection of this fort, better known among the English as Crown Point, was a piece of daring encroachment which justly 30 kindled resentment in the northern colonies. But it was not here that the immediate occasion of a final rupture was to arise. By an article of the treaty of Utrecht, confirmed by that of Aix-la-Chapelle, Acadia had been ceded to England; but scarcely was the latter treaty signed, when debates sprang up touching the limits of the ceded province. Commissioners were named on either side to adjust the disputed boundary; but the claims of the rival powers proved utterly irreconcilable, and all negotiation was fruitless. Meantime, the French and English forces in Acadia began to assume a belligerent attitude, and indulge their ill blood in mutual aggression and reprisal. But while this game was played on the coasts of the Atlantic, 50 interests of far greater moment were at stake in the west.

been

The people of the middle colonies, placed by their local position beyond

In the spring of 1753, the middle provinces were startled at the tidings that French troops had crossed Lake Erie, fortified themselves at the point of Presqu'-Isle, and pushed forward to the northern branches of the Ohio. Upon this, Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, resolved to despatch a message requiring their removal from territories which he claimed as belonging to the British crown; and looking about him 40 for the person best qualified to act as messenger, he made choice of George Washington, a young man twenty-one years of age, adjutant-general of the Virginian militia.

Washington departed on his mission, crossed the mountains, descended to the bleak and leafless valley of the Ohio, and thence continued his journey up the banks of the Alleghany until the fourth of December. On that day he reached Venango, an Indian town on the Alleghany, at the mouth of French Creek. Here was the advanced post of the French, and here, among the In