At almost the same time the Prince drew up and put in circulation one of the most vigorous and impassioned productions which ever came from his pen.  It was entitled, an “Epistle, in form of supplication, to his royal Majesty of Spain, from the Prince of Orange and the estates of Holland and Zealand.”  The document produced a profound impression throughout Christendom.  It was a loyal appeal to the monarch’s loyalty—­a demand that the land-privileges should be restored, and the Duke of Alva removed.  It contained a startling picture of his atrocities and the nation’s misery, and, with a few energetic strokes, demolished the pretence that these sorrows had been caused by the people’s guilt.  In this connexion the Prince alluded to those acts of condemnation which the Governor-General had promulgated under the name of pardons, and treated with scorn the hypothesis that any crimes had been committed for Alva to forgive.  “We take God and your Majesty to witness,” said the epistle, “that if we have done such misdeeds as are charged in the pardon, we neither desire nor deserve the pardon.  Like the most abject creatures which crawl the earth, we will be content to atone for our misdeeds with our lives.  We will not murmur, O merciful King, if we be seized one after another, and torn limb from limb, if it can be proved that we have committed the crimes of which we have been accused.”

After having thus set forth the tyranny of the government and the innocence of the people, the Prince, in his own name and that of the estates, announced the determination at which they had arrived.  “The tyrant,” he continued, “would rather stain every river and brook with our blood, and hang our bodies upon every tree in the country, than not feed to the full his vengeance, and steep himself to the lips in our misery.  Therefore we have taken up arms against the Duke of Alva and his adherents, to free ourselves, our wives and children, from his blood-thirsty hands.  If he prove too strong nor us, we will rather die an honorable death and leave a praiseworthy fame, than bend our necks, and reduce our dear fatherland to such slavery.  Herein are all our cities pledged to each other to stand every siege, to dare the utmost, to endure every possible misery, yea, rather to set fire to all our homes, and be consumed with them into ashes together, than ever submit to the decrees of this cruel tyrant.”

These were brave words, and destined to be bravely fulfilled, as the life and death of the writer and the records of his country proved, from generation unto generation.  If we seek for the mainspring of the energy which thus sustained the Prince in the unequal conflict to which he had devoted his life, we shall find it in the one pervading principle of his nature—­confidence in God.  He was the champion of the political rights of his country, but before all he was the defender of its religion.  Liberty of conscience for his people was his first