docility, with more sympathizing eagerness?  What obstacle had ever given them pause in their career of duty?  What element had they not braved?  Had not they fought within the bowels of the earth, beneath the depths of the sea, within blazing cities, and upon fields of ice?  Where was the work which had been too dark and bloody for their performance?  Had they not slaughtered unarmed human beings by townfuls, at the word of command?  Had they not eaten the flesh, and drank the hearts’ blood of their enemies?  Had they not stained the house of God with wholesale massacre?  What altar and what hearthstone had they not profaned?  What fatigue, what danger, what crime, had ever checked them for a moment?  And for all this obedience, labor, and bloodshed, were they not even to be paid such wages as the commonest clown, who only tore the earth at home, received?  Did Philip believe that a few thousand Spaniards were to execute his sentence of death against three millions of Netherlanders, and be cheated of their pay at last?

It was in vain that arguments and expostulations were addressed to soldiers who were suffering from want, and maddened by injustice.  They determined to take their cause into their own hand, as they had often done before.  By the 15th of July, the mutiny was general on the isle of Schouwen.  Promises were freely offered, both of pay and pardon; appeals were made to their old sense of honor and loyalty; but they had had enough of promises, of honor, and of work.  What they wanted now were shoes and jerkins, bread and meat, and money.  Money they would have, and that at once.  The King of Spain was their debtor.  The Netherlands belonged to the King of Spain.  They would therefore levy on the Netherlands for payment of their debt.  Certainly this was a logical deduction.  They knew by experience that this process had heretofore excited more indignation in the minds of the Netherland people than in that of their master.  Moreover, at this juncture, they cared little for their sovereign’s displeasure, and not at all for that of the Netherlanders.  By the middle of July, then, the mutineers, now entirely beyond control, held their officers imprisoned within their quarters at Zierickzee.  They even surrounded the house of Mondtagon, who had so often led them to victory, calling upon him with threats and taunts to furnish them with money.  The veteran, roused to fury by their insubordination and their taunts, sprang from his house into the midst of the throng.  Baring his breast before them, he fiercely invited and dared their utmost violence.  Of his life-blood, he told them bitterly, he was no niggard, and it was at their disposal.  His wealth, had he possessed any, would have been equally theirs.  Shamed into temporary respect, but not turned from their purpose by the choler of their chief, they left him to himself.  Soon afterwards, having swept Schouwen island bare of every thing which could be consumed, the mutineers swarmed out of Zealand into Brabant, devouring as they went.