ll 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
melodramatic, 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, arrived safely at San Lucar. It was the most
splendid treasure-fleet that had ever entered a Spanish port, and the
Dutch admiral's heart might well have danced for joy, had he chanced to
come a little later on the track. There were fifty ships, under charge of
General Alonzo de Ochares Galindo and General Ganevaye. They had on
board, according to the registers, 1,914,176 dollars worth of bullion for
the king, and 6,086,617 dollars for merchants, or 8,000,000 dollars in
all, besides rich cargoes of silk, cochineal, sarsaparilla, indigo,
Brazil wood, and hides; the result of two years of pressure upon
Peruvians, Mexi