History of the United Netherlands, 1605-07 | Page 9

directly down, full before the wind, upon the Dutch fleet.
It must be admitted that Admiral Haultain hardly displayed as much
energy now as he had done in the Straits of Dover against the unarmed
transports the year before. His ships were soon scattered, right and left,
and the manoeuvres for the weather-gage resolved themselves into a
general scramble for escape. Vice-Admiral Klaaszoon alone held firm,
and met the onset of the first comers of the Spanish fleet. A fierce
combat, yard- arm to yard-arm, ensued. Klaaszoon's mainmast went by
the board, but Haultain, with five ships, all that could be rallied,
coming to the rescue, the assailants for a moment withdrew. Five Dutch
vessels of moderate strength were now in action against the eighteen

great galleons of Fazardo. Certainly it was not an even game, but it
might have been played with more heart and better skill. There was but
a half-hour of daylight left when Klaaszoon's crippled ship was again
attacked. This time there was no attempt to offer him assistance; the
rest of the Dutch fleet crowding all the sails their masts would bear, and
using all the devices of their superior seamanship, not to harass the
enemy, but to steal as swiftly as possible out of his way. Honestly
confessing that they dared not come into the fight, they bore away for
dear life in every direction. Night came on, and the last that the
fugitives knew of the events off Cape St. Vincent was that stout
Regnier Klaaszoon had been seen at sunset in the midst of the Spanish
fleet; the sound of his broadsides saluting their ears as they escaped.
Left to himself, alone in a dismasted ship, the vice-admiral never
thought of yielding to the eighteen Spanish galleons. To the repeated
summons of Don Luis Fazardo that he should surrender he remained
obstinately deaf. Knowing that it was impossible for him to escape, and
fearing that he might blow up his vessel rather than surrender, the
enemy made no attempt to board. Spanish chivalry was hardly more
conspicuous on this occasion than Dutch valour, as illustrated by
Admiral Haultain. Two whole days and nights Klaaszoon drifted about
in his crippled ship, exchanging broadsides with his antagonists, and
with his colours flying on the stump of his mast. The fact would seem
incredible, were it not attested by perfectly trustworthy contemporary
accounts. At last his hour seemed to have come. His ship was sinking; a
final demand for surrender, with promise of quarter, was made. Out of
his whole crew but sixty remained alive; many of them badly wounded.
He quietly announced to his officers and men his decision never to
surrender, in which all concurred. They knelt together upon the deck,
and the admiral made a prayer, which all fervently joined. With his
own hand Klaaszoon then lighted the powder magazine, and the ship
was blown into the air. Two sailors, all that were left alive, were picked
out of the sea by the Spaniards and brought on board one of the vessels
of the fleet. Desperately mutilated, those grim Dutchmen lived a few
minutes to tell the tale, and then died defiant on the enemy's deck.
Yet it was thought that a republic, which could produce men like
Regnier Klaaszoon and his comrades, could be subjected again to
despotism, after a war for independence of forty years, and that such

sailors could be forbidden to sail the eastern and western seas. No
epigrammatic phrase has been preserved of this simple Regnier, the son
of Nicholas. He only did what is sometimes talked about in
phraseology more or less melo- dramatic, and did it in a very plain
way.
Such extreme deeds may have become so much less necessary in the
world, that to threaten them is apt to seem fantastic. Exactly at that
crisis of history, however, and especially in view of the Dutch admiral
commanding having refused a combat of one to three, the speechless
self- devotion of the vice-admiral was better than three years of
eloquent arguments and a ship-load of diplomatic correspondence, such
as were already impending over the world.
Admiral Haultain returned with all his ships uninjured--the six missing
vessels having found their way at last safely back to the squadron--but
with a very great crack to his reputation. It was urged very justly, both
by the States-General and the public, that if one ship under a
determined commander could fight the whole Spanish fleet two days
and nights, and sink unconquered at last, ten ships more might have put
the enemy to flight, or at least have saved the vice-admiral from
destruction.
But very few days after the incidents just described, the merchant fleet
which, instead of Don Luis Fazardo's war galleons, Admiral Haultain
had so longed to encounter,