s, Spain
had to depend primarily on the sea. It is true one could continue
on Spanish territory from Genoa, which was Spain's watergate into
Italy, across the Mont Cenis Pass, and through Savoy, Burgundy,
Lorraine, and Luxembourg to Brussels, and it was by this route that
Parma's splendid army of 10,000 "Blackbeards" came in 1577. But
this was an arduous three months' march for troops and still more
difficult for supplies. To cross France was as a rule impossible;
when Don Juan of Austria went to Flanders for the brief period of
leadership ended by his death of camp fever in 1578, he passed
through French territory disguised as a Moorish slave. By the sea
route, upon which Spain was after all largely dependent, and the
complete control of which would have made her task infinitely easier,
she was constantly exposed to Huguenot, Dutch, and English privateers.
These gentry cared little whether or not their country was actually
at war with Spain, but took their letters of marque, if they carried
them, from any prince or ruler who would serve their turn.

With this opportunity to strike at Spanish communications, it will
appear strange that the Dutch should not have immediately seized
their advantage and made it decisive. One curious difficulty lay
in the fact that throughout the war Dutch shipping actually carried
the bulk of Spanish trade and drew from it immense profits. Even
at the close of the century, while the war was still continuing,
nine-tenths of Spain's foreign trade and five-sixths of her home
trade was in foreign--and most of it in Dutch--hands. Hence any
form of sea warfare was sure to injure Dutch trade. The Revolution,
moreover, began slowly and feebly, with no well-thought-out plan of
campaign, and could not at once fit out fully organized forces to
cope with those of Spain. The Dutch early took to commerce warfare,
but it was at first semi-piratical, and involved the destruction
of ships of their own countrymen.

The Sea Beggars--_Zee Geuzen_ or _Gueux der Mer_--made their
appearance shortly after the outbreak of rebellion. "_Vyve les
geus par mer et par terre,_" wrote the patriot Count van Brederode
as early as 1566. The term "beggar" is said to have arisen from a
contemptuous remark by a Spanish courtier to Margaret of Parma, when
the Dutch nobles presented their grievances in Brussels. Willingly
accepting the name, the patriots applied it to their forces both
by land and by sea. Letters of marque wer