“’Tis very true that we summon your Highnesses, and levy upon your provinces, in order to obtain means of living; for in what other quarter should we make application.  Your Highnesses give us nothing except promises; but soldiers are not chameleons, to live on such air.  According to every principle of law, creditors have a lien on the property of their debtors.

“As to condemning to death as traitors and scoundrels those who don’t desire to be killed, and who have the means of killing such as attempt to execute the sentence; this is hardly in accordance with the extraordinary wisdom which has always characterized your Highnesses.

“As, to the confiscation of our goods, both moveable and immoveable, we would simply make this observation: 

“Our moveable goods are our swords alone, and they can only be moved by ourselves.  They are our immoveable goods as well; for should any one but ourselves undertake to move them, we assure your Highnesses that they will prove too heavy to be handled.

“As to the official register and deposit ordained of the money, clothing, and other property belonging to ourselves, our wives and children, the work may be done without clerks of inventory.  Certainly, if the domains of your Highnesses have no other sources of revenue than the proceeds of this confiscation, wherewith to feed the ostrich-like digestions of those about you, ’tis to be feared that ere long they will be in the same condition as were ours, when we were obliged to come together in Hoogstraaten to devise means to keep ourselves, our wives, and children alive.  And at that time we were an unbreeched people, like the Indians—­saving your Highnesses’ reverence—­and the climate here is too cold for such costume.  Your Highnesses, and your relatives the Emperor and King of Spain, will hardly make your royal heads greasy with the fat of such property as we possess, ’Twill also be a remarkable spectacle after you have stripped our wives and children stark naked for the benefit of your treasury, to see them sent in that condition, within three days afterwards, out of the country, as the ban ordains.

“You order the ban to be executed against our children and our children’s children, but your Highness never learned this in the Bible, when you were an archbishop, and when you expounded, or ought to have expounded, the Holy Scriptures to your flock.  What theology teaches your Highness to vent your wrath upon the innocent?

“Whenever the cause of discontent is taken away, the soldiers will become obedient and cheerful.  All kings and princes may mirror themselves in the bad government of your Highness, and may see how they fare who try to carry on a war, while with their own hands they cut the sinews of war.  The great leaders of old—­Cyrus, Alexander, Scipio, Caesar—­were accustomed, not to starve, but to enrich their soldiers.  What did Alexander, when in an arid desert they brought, him a helmet full of water?  He threw it on the sand, saying that there was only enough for him, but not enough for his army.