o his bogs, with hardly the semblance
of an army at his heels, was almost certain: The effect of such a blow
upon impending negotiations, and especially upon the impressible
imagination of Henry and the pedantic shrewdness of James, would have
been very valuable. It was not surprising that the successful soldier who
sat on the French throne, and who had been ever ready to wager life and
crown on the results of a stricken field, should be loud in his
expressions of disapprobation and disgust. Yet no man knew better than
the sagacious Gascon that fighting to win a crown, and to save a
republic, were two essentially different things.

In the early summer of this year Admiral Haultain, whom we lately saw
occupied with tossing Sarmiento's Spanish legion into the sea off the
harbour of Dover, had been despatched to the Spanish coast on a still
more important errand. The outward bound Portuguese merchantmen and the
home returning fleets from America, which had been absent nearly two
years, might be fallen in with at any moment, in the latitude of 36-38
deg. The admiral, having received orders, therefore, to cruise carefully
in those regions, sailed for the shores of Portugal with a squadron of
twenty-four war-ships. His expedition was not very successful. He picked
up a prize or two here and there, and his presence on the coast prevented
the merchant-fleet from sailing out of Lisbon for the East Indies, the
merchandise already on board being disembarked and the voyage postponed
to a more favourable opportunity.

He saw nothing, however, of the long-expected ships from the golden West
Indies--as Mexico, Peru, and Brazil were then indiscriminately
called--and after parting company with six of his own ships, which were
dispersed and damaged in a gale, and himself suffering from a dearth of
provisions, he was forced to return without much gain or glory.

In the month of September he was once more despatched on the same
service. He had nineteen war-galleots of the first class, and two yachts,
well equipped and manned. Vice-admiral of the fleet was Regnier Klaaszoon
(or Nicholson), of Amsterdam, a name which should always be held fresh in
remembrance, not only by mariners and Netherlanders, but by all men whose
pulses can beat in sympathy with practical heroism.

The admiral coasted deliberately along the shores of Spain and Portugal.
It seemed impossible that the golden fleets, which, as it was
ascertained, had not yet arrived,