For it was not alone the battles and sieges which furnished him with occupation and filled him with anxiety.  Alone, he directed in secret the politics of the country, and, powerless and outlawed though he seemed, was in daily correspondence not only with the estates of Holland and Zealand, whose deliberations he guided, but with the principal governments of Europe.  The estates of the Netherlands, moreover, had been formally assembled by Alva in September, at Brussels, to devise ways and means for continuing the struggle.  It seemed to the Prince a good opportunity to make an appeal to the patriotism of the whole country.  He furnished the province of Holland, accordingly, with the outlines of an address which was forthwith despatched in their own and his name, to the general assembly of the Netherlands.  The document was a nervous and rapid review of the course of late events in the provinces, with a cogent statement of the reasons which should influence them all to unite in the common cause against the common enemy.  It referred to the old affection and true-heartedness with which they had formerly regarded each other, and to the certainty that the inquisition would be for ever established in the land, upon the ruins of all their ancient institutions, unless they now united to overthrow it for ever.  It demanded of the people, thus assembled through their representatives, how they could endure the tyranny, murders, and extortions of the Duke of Alva.  The princes of Flanders, Burgundy, Brabant, or Holland, had never made war or peace, coined money, or exacted a stiver from the people without the consent of the estates.  How could the nation now consent to the daily impositions which were practised?  Had Amsterdam and Middelburg remained true; had those important cities not allowed themselves to be seduced from the cause of freedom, the northern provinces would have been impregnable.  “’Tis only by the Netherlands that the Netherlands are crushed,” said the appeal.  “Whence has the Duke of Alva the power of which he boasts, but from yourselves—­from Netherland cities?  Whence his ships, supplies, money, weapons, soldiers?  From the Netherland people.  Why has poor Netherland thus become degenerate and bastard?  Whither has fled the noble spirit of our brave forefathers, that never brooked the tyranny of foreign nations, nor suffered a stranger even to hold office within our borders?  If the little province of Holland can thus hold at bay the power of Spain, what could not all the Netherlands—­Brabant, Flanders, Friesland, and the rest united accomplish?” In conclusion, the estates-general were earnestly adjured to come forward like brothers in blood, and join hands with Holland, that together they might rescue the fatherland and restore its ancient prosperity and bloom.