But sometimes the expression of their feelings was so simple, so natural, and so touching, and there was so much of truth and naïveté, both in their manner and their words, that it was impossible to hear them without emotion. The French they loaded with execrations; and their hatred, their indignation, and their bitter feelings of their wrongs, said more than volumes of eloquence, or even facts could have done, in condemnation of the conduct of their late masters. All the English merchandise, and all colonial produce, imported even before it was decreed to be a crime, were seized, carried from their shops and warehouses, and burnt before their eyes in the Place Verte. No remuneration, no indemnity whatever was given them; and by this single act of wanton tyranny, hundreds of industrious families were reduced to beggary. Heavy exactions and continual contributions were levied, and the weight of these fell upon the most industrious and respectable orders of the people. "All that we had they took," was said again and again to us, "and if we had had thousands more, it would have all gone." They ruined the commerce, the manufactures, the trade of the country, and then they drained the poor inhabitants of their property. They shut up the sources of wealth, and then called on them for money. They blocked up the fountain, and then asked for its waters. Like Egyptian task-masters, they took from them the materials, and then demanded their work. They expected them to make "bricks without straw." The French soldiers lived at free-quarters upon the people, and the Belgic youths were marched away to fight in foreign wars. The oppressed people were subject to the unrestrained rapine and brutal insolence of the French soldiery, of which they durst not complain. It was unsafe even to murmur. Not only the liberty of the press, but the liberty of speech was denied them. Any unfortunate person convicted of holding intercourse with England was imprisoned, and some of them (we were told), by way of example, were shot.