All such refugees were ordered to return on peril of forfeiting their property.

Few came back, however, for they had found means of converting and transferring their funds to other more secure places, despite the threatened confiscation.

It was insinuated that Holland and Zeeland were indifferent to the fate of Antwerp, because in the sequel the commercial cities of those Provinces succeeded to the vast traffic and the boundless wealth which had been forfeited by the Brabantine capital.

The charge was an unjust one.

At the very commencement of the siege the States of Holland voted two hundred thousand florins for its relief; and, moreover, these wealthy refugees were positively denied admittance into the territory of the United States, and were thus forced to settle in Germany or England.