e force of about seven thousand men. With these,
however, and a succession of masterly manoeuvres, he contrived to
preserve the republic from invasion, and to paralyze and almost
destroy an army three times superior in numbers to his own. The
horrors committed by the Spaniards, in the midst of peace, and
without the slightest provocation, could not fail to excite the
utmost indignation in a nation so fond of liberty and so proud
as Germany. The duchy of Cleves felt particularly aggrieved; and
Sybilla, the sister of the duke, a real heroine in a glorious
cause, so worked on the excited passions of the people by her
eloquence and her tears that she persuaded all the orders of
the state to unite against the odious enemy. Some troops were
suddenly raised; and a league was formed between several princes
of the empire to revenge the common cause. The count de la Lippe
was chosen general of their united forces; and the choice could
not have fallen on one more certainly incapable or more probably
treacherous.

The German army, with their usual want of activity, did not open
the campaign till the month of June. It consisted of fourteen
thousand men; and never was an army so badly conducted. Without
money, artillery, provisions, or discipline, it was at any moment
ready to break up and abandon its incompetent general; and on
the very first encounter with the enemy, and after a loss of
a couple of hundred men, it became self-disbanded; and, flying
in every direction, not a single man could be rallied to clear
away this disgrace.

The states-general, cruelly disappointed at this result of measures
from which they had looked for so important a diversion in their
favor, now resolved on a vigorous exertion of their own energies,
and determined to undertake a naval expedition of a magnitude
greater than any they had hitherto attempted. The force of public
opinion was at this period more powerful than it had ever yet been
in the United Provinces; for a great number of the inhabitants,
who, during the life of Philip II., conscientiously believed that
they could not lawfully abjure the authority once recognized and
sworn to, became now liberated from those respectable, although
absurd, scruples; and the death of one unfeeling despot gave
thousands of new citizens to the state.

A fleet of seventy-three vessels, carrying eight thousand men,
was soon equipped, under the order of Admiral Vander Goes; and,
after a series of attempts on