The document by which the provinces renounced their allegiance was not the most felicitous of their state papers.  It was too prolix and technical.  Its style had more of the formal phraseology of legal documents than befitted this great appeal to the whole world and to all time.  Nevertheless, this is but matter of taste.  The Netherlanders were so eminently a law-abiding people, that, like the American patriots of the eighteenth century, they on most occasions preferred punctilious precision to florid declamation.  They chose to conduct their revolt according to law.  At the same time, while thus decently wrapping herself in conventional garments, the spirit of Liberty revealed none the less her majestic proportions.

At the very outset of the Abjuration, these fathers of the Republic laid down wholesome truths, which at that time seemed startling blasphemies in the ears of Christendom.  “All mankind know,” said the preamble, “that a prince is appointed by God to cherish his subjects, even as a shepherd to guard his sheep.  When, therefore, the prince—­does not fulfil his duty as protector; when he oppresses his subjects, destroys their ancient liberties, and treats them as slaves, he is to be considered, not a prince, but a tyrant.  As such, the estates of the land may lawfully and reasonably depose him, and elect another in his room.”

Having enunciated these maxims, the estates proceeded to apply them to their own case, and certainly never was an ampler justification for renouncing a prince since princes were first instituted.  The states ran through the history of the past quarter of a century, patiently accumulating a load of charges against the monarch, a tithe of which would have furnished cause for his dethronement.  Without passion or exaggeration, they told the world their wrongs.  The picture was not highly colored.  On the contrary, it was rather a feeble than a striking portrait of the monstrous iniquity which had so long been established over them.  Nevertheless, they went through the narrative conscientiously and earnestly.  They spoke of the King’s early determination to govern the Netherlands, not by natives but by Spaniards; to treat them not as constitutional countries, but as conquered provinces; to regard the inhabitants not as liege subjects, but as enemies; above all, to supersede their ancient liberty by the Spanish Inquisition, and they alluded to the first great step in this scheme—­the creation of the new bishoprics, each with its staff of inquisitors.

They noticed the memorable Petition, the mission of Berghen and Montigny, their imprisonment and taking off, in violation of all national law, even that which had ever been held sacred by the most cruel and tyrannical princes.  They sketched the history of Alva’s administration; his entrapping the most eminent nobles by false promises, and delivering them to the executioner; his countless sentences of death, outlawry, and confiscation;