The memorable treason--or, as it was called, the "reconciliation" of the Walloon Provinces in the year 1583-4--had placed the Provinces of Hainault, Arthois, Douay, with the flourishing cities Arran, Valenciennes, Lille, Tournay, and others--all Celtic Flanders, in short-in the grasp of Spain.

Cambray was still held by the French governor, Seigneur de Balagny, who had taken advantage of the Duke of Anjou's treachery to the States, to establish himself in an unrecognized but practical petty sovereignty, in defiance both of France and Spain; while East Flanders and South Brabant still remained a disputed territory, and the immediate field of contest.

With these limitations, it may be assumed, for general purposes, that the territory of the United States was that of the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands, while the obedient Provinces occupied what is now the territory of Belgium.
Such, then, were the combatants in the great eighty years' war for civil and religious liberty; sixteen of which had now passed away.

On the one side, one of the most powerful and, populous world-empires of history, then in the zenith of its prosperity; on the other hand, a slender group of cities, governed by merchants and artisans, and planted precariously upon a meagre, unstable soil.

A million and a half of souls against the autocrat of a third part of the known world.