THE FAREWELL.

Being to take our leave of these our wooden walls; first, I wish that they may conquer with their mast and sails, without their guns; that their very appearance may fright their foes into submission.

But if, in point of honour or safety, they be necessitated to engage, may they always keep the wind of the enemy, that their shot may fly with the greater force, and that the smoke of their powder, pursuing the foe, may drive him to fire at hazard! May their gunner be in all places of the ship, to see where he can make a shot with the best advantage; their carpenter and his crew be always in the hold, presently to drive in a wooden plug (whereas a shot comes betwixt wind and water), and to clap a board with tar and camel's hair upon it till the dispute be over; their chirurgeon and his assistants be in the same place (out of danger of shot) to dress the wounded; their captain be in the uppermost, the lieutenant in every part of the ship, to encourage the seamen; the chaplain at his devotions, to importune heaven for success, and encouraging all by his good council, if time will permit!

The reader having now been made acquainted with the English navy, it becomes necessary, in order that he may have a proper understanding of the battles which it fought with the navy of the united Provinces, to trace the rise and progress of the latter, up to the moment of actual conflict, and to touch briefly upon the history of that remarkable people, whose self-reliant, fearless, independent, and energetic character enabled their country to carry on, to a successful issue, an eighty years' war with Spain, and to compete, for so long a period, with its great maritime rival, for supremacy at sea.

Holland or Ollant, as the earliest Dutch writers styled the land they inhabited, is said to mean marshy ground, "which," remarks Bosworth, "exactly suits the fenny and boggy soil it designates. Look for the word in the Teuthonista of Van der Schueren, and you will find 'Beven daveren als eyn ollant, scatere'—tremble under the feet as a marshy ground." Pliny mentions it as a county over which the ocean pours in its flood twice every day, and produces a perpetual uncertainty, among its inhabitants, whether they are living upon the land or at sea,” while English seamen were wont to speak of it, contemptuously, a bit of mud carried over from the Channel on the leads of British

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pilots."

Its first inhabitants, so far as we know, were the Batavians, whom Tacitus characterizes as the bravest and most warlike of the Germans, and it is from this tribe that Grotius, Erasmus, and others of the most

learned Dutch authors claim the Dutch of the 17th century to be descended; but as the historian Wagenaar asserts positively that the Batavians had become so exhausted in Rome's wars that in the 5th century their very name became obliterated from history, how, it may be pertinently asked, could there be any of their blood remaining among the inhabitants of their country, twelve hundred years later? Batavia, overrun by horde after horde of fierce barbarians, fell finally into the hands of the Friezlanders, a people resembling its primitive. inhabitants in every respect. Among their virtues not the least was the tenacity with which they clung to ancient friendships, perferring old friends to new even for companionship in the world to come. Wilfran, Archbishop of Sens under Charles Mastel, after much persuasion, believed he had prevailed upon king Radbod of Friezland to be baptized. The king, indeed, had gone so far as to place one foot upon the font when he asked-" Are my ancestors among the blessed in heaven ?” "Assuredly not," replied the good bishop, "they are damned "—"I will not, then," exclaimed Radbod starting back, "forsake my many friends in hell, to dwell with a few Christians in Heaven.” *

In the 10th century, a part of ancient Batavia, under the distinctive name of Holland, organized a separate government for itself, of which Diedrick was made the head, with the title of Count of Holland, (A. D. 903); Philip the 2nd of Spain being the last who was raised to this dignity in 1581. Philip, being a bigoted Catholic and infringing the rights of Holland and the neighboring States, Holland united with four of them in 1579, and with two others in 1581, to resist Spanish tyranny. This confederation formed the seven united Provinces of Holland. Friezland, Utrecht, Gueldres, Zutphen, Overyssell and Groningen, whose inhabitants, accustomed to struggle with the very ocean itself for the soil they inhabited, were not disposed to submit tamely to encroachments from other quarters. With admirable independence, considering the age in which they lived, they declared, in their manifesto, that "the prince is made for the people, not the people for the prince," and that "the prince who treats his subjects as slaves is a tyrant whom his subjects have a right to dethrone."

The Federal Government was composed of a States General to which all the States sent their representatives, a Stadtholder who was Captain General and Admiral and had the appointment of all military and naval commissions, a Treasurer, a Conservator of the Peace, and

Dans. History of Holland.

a Grand Pensionary ; but, as the three last named officers were entirely independent of the first, while all held their offices at the will of the States General, which could neither make war nor peace if a single province objected thereto, it is clear that the people of the united Provinces were themselves the source and end of all power.

In 1650, the office of Stadtholder was discontinued; but, revived in 1654, by decree of the States General, and conferred on the Prince of Orange as an hereditary rank.

As might have been expected from their position, the Netherlanders applied themselves, at a very early period, to marine pursuits, and especially to fishing, which in the end became a source of such immense national wealth to their country that the discovery of an improved method of drying and barrelling herrings, in 1414, gained for its author, Jacob Benkelson, the everlasting gratitude of his countrymen ; the great Charles the 5th, on one of his many journeys, stopping to visit the monument erected to his memory, because he regarded him " one of the greatest benefactors of mankind."

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By degrees, their voyages were extended, from the fishing banks on their own and the English coast, to the countries bordering on the* Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic and Mediterranean seas, and finally, to the remotest corners of the habitable globe; their ships increasing in size as the ports which they were required to visit became more distant. Their vessels differed from those of other nations in their having more beam in proportion to their length and in their flatter floors, the sands which environ their coast obliging them to make them of as light draught as possible; and "this principle acting forcibly on the minds of an economical people, that the greater the breadth which is given to a vessel the less will be the expense in constructing it, proportioned to the commodities that it will be able to contain."

So advanced were the ideas of the Dutch, as regards commercial enterprise, that they held it as good policy for a nation to supply even its enemies with munitions of war, since if not so supplied, they would obtain them from another source, "while an enemy's gold" they argued, "passed as readily as a friend's."

In 1638, a merchant of Amsterdam, named Beyland, upon being dragged before the magistrates of that city on a charge of having violated the neutrality of his country by carrying powder and muskets to Antwerp, then besieged by the Spaniards, boldly admitted the accusation, declaring that the people of Amsterdam had a right to trade where they pleased, and that "for his part he would risk burning his

sails on a voyage to hell, if anything could be made by bringing brimstone therefrom."

The magistrates with one accord approved of his course and ordered that he should be discharged from custody. Such, in brief, were the condition and temper of the merchants and the merchant marine.

In 1589, the navy of The United Provinces, which previously to this period had been, like that of England before the time of Henry the Seventh, a mere assemblage of armed merchantmen, was placed upon a regular footing. A Board of Admiralty was created, consisting of seven members, of which the Admiral-in-chief was the head, who remained in office for three years. Their duties were to build and fit ships, to supply them with cannon and other munitions of war, and to see that their crews were provided with good clothing and provisions and regularly paid. Their navy, under this system, gradually increased until it consisted of about one hundred large vessels, for coast defense, and some sixty or seventy yachts and pinnaces of eighty or less tous each, to protect their rivers and inland seas.

In 1602, the Dutch East India Company was formed, which, with its large capital and fine ships, well manned and armed, added greatly to the naval resources of the country.

But the great strength of the Navy consisted in this, that it was founded upon the affections of the people, and kept alive by their traditions, there being scarcely a family in the whole United Provinces without one or more representatives in it; so that its services and its heroism became the themes of every fireside, the old men telling of the storms they or their comrades had weathered and the battles they had taken part in, and the young men listening with attentive ears to the recital, anxious to emulate the deeds of their sires.

Thus on some evenings the story would be told of Piet Hein's doings at San Salvador, and of his capture of the Silver Fleet-on others of the patriotism of rear-admiral Klaaszoon, who, being surrounded by a Spanish fleet, defended his vessel until his masts were gone, his ammunition exhausted, and every man of his crew either killed or desperately wounded, when he proposed to the survivors to blow up the vessel that none might fall alive into the enemy's hands; and we may imagine the effect upon young and old as the narrators would go on to describe the scene that followed *. The rear-admiral, kneeling down in the midst of his officers and men, and with hands clasped and eyes

* Cerisier, Tome, iv. p. 541.

uplifted to Heaven asking pardon for his and their sins, and invoking a blessing upon his country; and then coolly setting fire to the train leading to the magazine, and yielding up his life here for immortality hereafter.

But the story which was oftenest told and most eagerly looked for was that of the destruction of a Spanish fleet at Gibraltar by the gallant Heemskerk; for it was a tale of valor unsurpassed in naval annals, and of peculiar interest to the Dutch people as the first great triumph of their navy over that arrogant foe, under whose ruthless tyranny their land had, for almost a hundred years, groaned. The facts are these:

In the latter part of the 16th century, the loss to Dutch shipping by the depredations of Spanish cruisers was so great as seriously to alarm the merchants of the United Provinces, lest it should be actually swept from the ocean. In this emergency, the States General resolved to fit out a fleet expressly to cruise against Spanish commerce, and "to assail the Spaniards at sea and on land.”

For this purpose, in 1607, a force of twenty-six of their largest and best vessels was collected, armed with cannon of the heaviest calibre, and provided with every thing necessary for its efficiency that gold could procure. Its officers and crews were picked men and, by unanimous consent, the command-in-chief was conferred upon Jacob Van Heemskerk, a man of exalted courage and singular modesty, who had made two voyages to the Arctic Ocean, and commanded the fleet of the East India Company, in a successful engagement with the Spaniards, in 1604.

On the 25th of March, the armament set sail, and on the 24th of April, while running along the Spanish coast, the admiral was informed by a Frenchman that he had seen twenty-one Spanish men-of-war in the straits of Gibraltar standing in for the town. This was just the opportunity Heemskerk wanted; so he assembled his captains on board his flag-ship, the Eolus, and explained to them his plan of battle, and, after they had returned to their commands, made all sail with a leading wind for the straits, which he reached early on the following morning.

As he approached Gibraltar, the Spanish fleet was observed to be anchored in a semi-circle off the quay, which was of stone, and bristling with cannon, while the wings of the fleet were protected by castles strongly garrisoned, whose guns frowned defiance toward the

sea.