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The Portuguese ministry favoured the French in secret; the people were averse to heretics; the duke of Schom-berg was on ill terms with Fagel, the Dutch general; the Portuguese forces consisted of raw undisciplined peasants; and the French ambassador had bought up the best horses in the kingdom; so that the troopers could not be properly mounted.
The constant cooeperation and participation in his views also of the pensionary, Fagel, gave him an advantage which none of his predecessors had ever enjoyed; the influence of the pensionaries of Holland having hitherto been always opposed, and forming a counterpoise, to that of the stadtholder.
The resignation was accepted, the request granted, but owing to opposition no vote of thanks was given. Caspar Fagel was appointed council-pensionary in his place. The enemies of John de Witt were not content with his fall from power. A committee of six judges were empanelled to try his brother Cornelis for his alleged crime.
He had been entrusted some years before by Fagel with important secrets, and had resolutely kept them in spite of the most horrible torments which could be inflicted by boot and thumbscrew. His rare fortitude had earned for him as large a share of the Prince's confidence and esteem as was granted to any man except Bentinck. Ferguson could not remain quiet when a revolution was preparing.
Fagel during a long time made no reply; but finding that his silence was construed into an assent, he at last expressed his own sentiments and those of their highnesses.
Fagel arrived from England with a letter from the Prince of Orange, announcing his immediate coming; and finally, the disembarkation of two hundred English marines, on the 29th, was followed the next day by the landing of the prince, whose impatience to throw himself into the open arms of his country made him spurn every notion of risk and every reproach for rashness.
"Not only is it desired," said the grand pensionary Fagel, "but it is absolutely indispensable, and I would not answer for it that the States General, if driven to extremity by the sluggishness of their allies, will not make a separate peace with France. I know nobody in Holland who is not of the same opinion." The Prince of Orange flew out at such language.
The prince of Orange and baron Fagel, with six-and-thirty Dutch battalions, advanced against the right of the enemy, posted in the wood of La Merte, and covered with three intrenchments. Here the battle was maintained with the most desperate courage on both sides. The Dutch obliged the French to quit the first intrenchment; but were repulsed from the second with great slaughter.
Through the Council-Pensionary Fagel he was able to retain the support of the majority in the Estates of Holland, despite the strong opposition he encountered at Amsterdam and some other towns, where the interests of commerce reigned supreme.
To tell thee truly, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, any other date would have pleased me much better, not only on account of the sad stain upon our history that year, in marching off our troops, and refusing to cover the siege of Quesnoi, though Fagel was carrying on the works with such incredible vigour but likewise on the score, Trim, of thy own story; because if there are and which, from what thou hast dropt, I partly suspect to be the fact if there are giants in it
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