History of the United Netherlands, 1607a

History of the United
Netherlands, 1607a

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1607(a)
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Title: History of the United Netherlands, 1607(a)
Author: John Lothrop Motley
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4879] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 15,
2002]

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Language: English
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UNITED NETHERLANDS, 1607(a) ***

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HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS From the Death of
William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
By John Lothrop Motley

MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg
Edition, Vol. 79
History of the United Netherlands, 1607

CHAPTER XLVII
.
A Dutch fleet under Heemskerk sent to the coast of Spain and
Portugal--Encounter with the Spanish war fleet under D'Avila--Death
of both commanders-in-chief--Victory of the Netherlanders--Massacre
of the Spaniards.
The States-General had not been inclined to be tranquil under the check
which Admiral Haultain had received upon the coast of Spain in the
autumn of 1606. The deed of terrible self-devotion by which Klaaszoon
and his comrades had in that crisis saved the reputation of the republic,
had proved that her fleets needed only skilful handling and determined

leaders to conquer their enemy in the Western seas as certainly as they
had done in the archipelagos of the East. And there was one
pre-eminent naval commander, still in the very prime of life, but
seasoned by an experience at the poles and in the tropics such as few
mariners in that early but expanding maritime epoch could boast. Jacob
van Heemskerk, unlike many of the navigators and ocean warriors who
had made and were destined to make the Orange flag of the United
Provinces illustrious over the world, was not of humble parentage.
Sprung of an ancient, knightly race, which had frequently distinguished
itself in his native province of Holland, he had followed the seas almost
from his cradle. By turns a commercial voyager, an explorer, a
privateer's-man, or an admiral of war- fleets, in days when sharp
distinctions between the merchant service and the public service,
corsairs' work and cruisers' work, did not exist, he had ever proved
himself equal to any emergency--a man incapable of fatigue, of
perplexity, or of fear. We have followed his career during that awful
winter in Nova Zembla, where, with such unflinching cheerful heroism,
he sustained the courage of his comrades--the first band of scientific
martyrs that had ever braved the dangers and demanded the secrets of
those arctic regions. His glorious name--as those of so many of his
comrades and countrymen--has been rudely torn from cape,
promontory, island, and continent, once illustrated by courage and
suffering, but the noble record will ever remain.
Subsequently he had much navigated the Indian ocean; his latest
achievement having been, with two hundred men, in a couple of yachts,
to capture an immense Portuguese carrack, mounting thirty guns, and
manned with eight hundred sailors, and to bring back a prodigious
booty for the exchequer of the republic. A man with delicate features,
large brown eyes, a thin high nose, fair hair and beard, and a soft,
gentle expression, he concealed, under a quiet exterior, and on ordinary
occasions a very plain and pacific costume, a most daring nature, and
an indomitable ambition for military and naval distinction.
He was the man of all others in the commonwealth to lead any new
enterprise that audacity could conceive against the hereditary enemy.
The public and the States-General were anxious to retrace the track of
Haultain, and to efface the memory of his inglorious return from the
Spanish coast.