Two thousand one hundred able-bodied
men, of whom only about one-third were soldiers, to resist sixteen
thousand regulars!
"Nor was there any doubt as to the fate which was reserved for them,
should they succumb. The Duke was vociferous at the ingratitude
with which his _clemency_ had hitherto been requited. He complained
bitterly of the ill success which had attended his monitory circulars;
reproached himself with incredible vehemence, for his previous
mildness, and protested that, after having executed only twenty-three
hundred persons at the surrender of Haarlem, besides a few additional
burghers since, he had met with no correspondent demonstrations of
affection. He promised himself, however, an ample compensation for all
this ingratitude in the wholesale vengeance which he purposed to wreck
upon Alkmaar. Already he gloated in anticipation over the havoc which
would soon be let loose within those walls. Such ravings, if invented
by the pen of fiction, would seem a puerile caricature; proceeding,
authentically, from his own, they still appear almost too exaggerated
for belief. 'If I take Alkmaar,' he wrote to Philip, 'I am resolved
not to leave a single creature alive; the knife shall be put to every
throat. Since the example of Harlem has proved of no use, _perhaps
an example of cruelty_ will bring the other cities to their senses,'
He took occasion also to read a lecture to the party of conciliation
in Madrid, whose counsels, as he believed, his sovereign was beginning
to heed.
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