accordingly, not urged by the most disinterested motives certainly, but with as warm a friendship for his master as princes usually inspire, proceeded to urge upon Perez the necessity of, aiding the man who was able to help them.  The first step was to get him out of the Netherlands.  That was his constant thought, by day and night.  As it would hardly be desirable for him to go alone, it seemed proper that Escovedo should, upon some pretext, be first sent to Spain.  Such a pretext would be easily found, because, as Don John had accepted the government, “it would be necessary for him to do all which the rascals bade him.”  After these minute statements, the Secretary warned his correspondent of the necessity of secrecy, adding that he especially feared “all the court ladies, great and small, but that he in everything confided entirely in Perez.”

Nearly at the same time, Don John wrote to Perez in a similar tone.  “Ah, Senor Antonio,” he exclaimed, “how certain is my disgrace and my misfortune.  Ruined is our enterprise, after so much labor and such skilful management.”  He was to have commenced the work with the very Spanish soldiers who were now to be sent off by land, and he had nothing for it but to let them go, or to come to an open rupture with the states.  “The last, his conscience, his duty, and the time, alike forbade.”  He was therefore obliged to submit to the ruin of his plans, and “could think of nothing save to turn hermit, a condition in which a man’s labors, being spiritual, might not be entirely in vain.”  He was so overwhelmed by the blow, he said, that he was constantly thinking of an anchorite’s life.  That which he had been leading had become intolerable.  He was not fitted for the people of the Netherlands, nor they for him.  Rather than stay longer than was necessary in order to appoint his successor, there was no resolution he might not take, even to leaving everything and coming upon them when they least expected him, although he were to receive a bloody punishment in consequence.  He, too, suggested the Empress, who had all the qualities which he lacked himself, or Madame de Parma, or Madame de Lorraine, as each of them was more fit to govern the provinces than he pretended to be.  “The people,” said he, plainly, “are beginning to abhor me, and I abhor them already.”  He entreated Perez to get him out of the country by fair means or foul, “per fas aut per nefas.”  His friends ought to procure his liberation, if they wished to save him from the sin of disobedience, and even of infamy.  He expressed the most unbounded confidence in the honor of his correspondent, adding that if nothing else could procure his release, the letter might be shown to the King.  In general, the Governor was always willing that Perez should make what changes he thought advisable in the letters for his Majesty, altering or softening whatever seemed crude or harsh, provided always the main point—­that of procuring his recal—­were steadily kept in view, in this, said the Governor, vehemently, my life, my honor, and my soul are all at stake; for as to the two first, I shall forfeit them both certainly, and, in my desperate condition, I shall run great risk of losing the last.