MS, vol. ii. c. 46,]

Holland and Zealand were cut in twain by the occupation of Schouwen and
the approaching fall of its capital. Germany, England, France; all
refused to stretch out their hands to save the heroic but exhaustless
little provinces. It was at this moment that a desperate but sublime
resolution took possession of the Prince's mind. There seemed but one way
left to exclude the Spaniards for ever from Holland and Zealand, and to
rescue the inhabitants from impending ruin. The Prince had long brooded
over the scheme, and the hour seemed to have struck for its fulfilment.
His project was to collect all the vessels, of every description, which
could be obtained throughout the Netherlands. The whole population of the
two provinces, men, women, and children, together with all the moveable
property of the country, were then to be embarked on board this numerous
fleet, and to seek a new home beyond the seas. The windmills were then to
be burned, the dykes pierced, the sluices opened in every direction, and
the country restored for ever to the ocean, from which it had sprung.

It is difficult to say whether the resolution, if Providence had
permitted its fulfilment, would have been, on the whole, better or worse
for humanity and civilization. The ships which would have borne the
heroic Prince and his fortunes might have taken the direction of the
newly-discovered Western hemisphere. A religious colony, planted by a
commercial and liberty-loving race, in a virgin soil, and directed by
patrician but self-denying hands, might have preceded, by half a century,
the colony which a kindred race, impelled by similar motives, and under
somewhat similar circumstances and conditions, was destined to plant upon
the stern shores of New England. Had they directed their course to the
warm and fragrant islands of the East, an independent Christian
commonwealth might have arisen among those prolific regions, superior in
importance to any subsequent colony of Holland, cramped from its birth by
absolute subjection to a far distant metropolis.

The unexpected death of Requesens suddenly dispelled these schemes. The
siege of Zierickzee had occupied much of the Governor's attention, but he
had recently written to his sovereign, that its reduction was now
certain. He had added an urgent request for money, with a sufficient
supply of which he assured Philip that he should be able to bring the war
to an immediate conclusion. While waitin