of conciliation immediately.  The war was in full career and could not be arrested even in that wintry season.  The patriots held Mondragon closely besieged in Middelburg, the last point in the Isle of Walcheren which held for the King.  There was a considerable treasure in money and merchandise shut up in that city; and, moreover, so deserving and distinguished an officer as Mondragon could not be abandoned to his fate.  At the same time, famine was pressing him sorely, and, by the end of the year, garrison and townspeople had nothing but rats, mice, dogs, cats, and such repulsive substitutes for food, to support life withal.  It was necessary to take immediate measures to relieve the place.

On the other hand, the situation of the patriots was not very encouraging.  Their superiority on the sea was unquestionable, for the Hollanders and Zealanders were the best sailors in the world, and they asked of their country no payment for their blood, but thanks.  The land forces, however, were usually mercenaries, who were apt to mutiny at the commencement of an action if, as was too often the case, their wages could not be paid.  Holland was entirely cut in twain by the loss of Harlem and the leaguer of Leyden, no communication between the dissevered portions being possible, except with difficulty and danger.  The estates, although they had done much for the cause, and were prepared to do much more, were too apt to wrangle about economical details.  They irritated the Prince of Orange by huckstering about subsidies to a degree which his proud and generous nature could hardly brook.  He had strong hopes from France.  Louis of Nassau had held secret interviews with the Duke of Alencon and the Duke of Anjou, now King of Poland, at Blamont.  Alencon had assured him secretly, affectionately, and warmly, that he would be as sincere a friend to the cause as were his two royal brothers.  The Count had even received one hundred thousand livres in hand, as an earnest of the favorable intentions of France, and was now busily engaged, at the instance of the Prince, in levying an army in Germany for the relief of Leyden and the rest of Holland, while William, on his part, was omitting nothing, whether by representations to the estates or by secret foreign missions and correspondence, to further the cause of the suffering country.

At the same time, the Prince dreaded the effect—­of the promised pardon.  He had reason to be distrustful of the general temper of the nation when a man like Saint Aldegonde, the enlightened patriot and his own tried friend, was influenced, by the discouraging and dangerous position in which he found himself, to abandon the high ground upon which they had both so long and so firmly stood:  Saint Aldegonde had been held a strict prisoner since his capture at Maeslandsluis, at the close of Alva’s administration.—­It was, no doubt, a predicament attended with much keen suffering and positive danger.  It had hitherto