C 135 3 
Other writers of the greatest veracity, as, the 
bravest among the Germans, and the most 
obstinate lovers and defenders of their liberty. 
They maintained this chara6ler till the ap- 
plication they had before bestowed on agri- 
culture, and the arts dependent on or con- 
ne6led with the soil, was almost exclusively 
turned to foreign commerce and trade. With 
this important change commenced the de- 
cline of the Low Countries. A particular 
instance of the degeneracy of their character 
occurred, if we recolle6t right, about 1567, 
when the arrival of the Duke of Alva with 
/ 
an army of only twelve or fourteen thousand 
men, had spread so great a panic, that up- 
Avards of one hundred thousand families, 
composed wholly of merchants and traders, 
withdrew with their money and property 
from the country. 
But in what country, and on what occa- 
sion can it be found, that an equal or much 
less number of the cultivators of the soil 
have been so easily intimidated, or have so 
basely deserted their country in the hour of 
