command of Alva and Farnese, had dwindled away to a few thousand
men, ill paid and ill disciplined. England, Holland, and France
had great navies. But the Spanish navy was scarcely equal to the
tenth part of that mighty force which, in the time of Philip the
Second, had been the terror of the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean. The arsenals were deserted. The magazines were
unprovided. The frontier fortresses were ungarrisoned. The police
was utterly inefficient for the protection of the people. Murders
were committed in the face of day with perfect impunity. Bravoes
and discarded serving-men, with swords at their sides,. swaggered
every day through the most public streets and squares of the
capital, disturbing the public peace, and setting at defiance the
ministers of justice. The finances were in frightful disorder.
The people paid much. The Government received little. The
American viceroys and the farmers of the revenue became rich,
while the merchants broke, while the peasantry starved, while the
body-servants of the sovereign remained unpaid, while the
soldiers of the royal guard repaired daily to the doors of
convents, and battled there with the crowd of beggars for a
porringer of broth and a morsel of bread. Every remedy which was
tried aggravated the disease. The currency was altered; and this
frantic measure produced its never-failing effects. It destroyed
all credit, and increased the misery which it was intended to
relieve. The American gold, to use the words of Ortiz, was to the
necessities of the State but as a drop of water to the lips of a
man raging with thirst. Heaps of unopened despatches accumulated
in the offices, while the ministers were concerting with
bedchamber-women and Jesuits the means of tripping up each other.
Every foreign power could plunder and insult with impunity the
heir of Charles the Fifth. Into such a state had the mighty