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After several years he sailed for Holland in his frail craft but was wrecked in the Texel, where, after eight days of suffering, he and his family barely escaped with their lives, having lost all his paintings, and the fruits of his industry. This mishap cured him of his passion for the sea. An amusing anecdote is related of this eminent painter.

And, the wind favoring them, they got out of the Texel before the order desired could be brought from The Hague.

Leaving them to revolutionize Ireland, Gantheaume was to make for the English Channel, touch at Cherbourg for further orders, and proceed to Boulogne to convoy the flotilla across: or, if the weather prevented this, as was probable in January, he was to pass on to the Texel, rally the seven Dutch battleships and the transports with their 25,000 troops, beat back down the English Channel and return to Ireland.

"Aye, sir, aye a full muster," answered the old mild-faced hostess, who was busily employed knitting a stocking of pale blue in the porch, looking for all the world like the sainted mother of a family of saints. Michael Texel walked straight through a passage and down a narrow alley, the beautiful apple-cheeked old woman following us with her eyes as we went.

He sailed from the Texel in his solitary vessel, upon this hazardous expedition, on the 6th of April, 1609. Doubling North Cape amid storms and fog and ice, after the rough voyage of a month, he became discouraged, and determined to change his plan and seek a northwest passage.

There were Utrecht water-bearers, Gouda cheese-makers, Delft pottery-men, Schiedam distillers, Amsterdam diamond-cutters, Rotterdam merchants, dried-up herring-packers, and two sleepy-eyed shepherds from Texel. Every man of them had his pipe and tobacco-pouch.

When they were thoroughly rested from their fatigues and cured of scurvy, the Dutch went to Batavia, arriving there on the 23rd October, 1616, only thirteen months after quitting the Texel, and having lost only thirteen men during the long voyage.

On the 5th we met with eight Dutch men of war, which were cruizing on purpose to convoy us safe home, accompanied by four victuallers and three of the Company's privateers. On the 15th July we all arrived safely in the Texel, and got on the 17th to Amsterdam.

They equipped a larger fleet than before, with a far more numerous army, over which they appointed the same able commander: and by an agreement with Holland, the Dutch fleet in the Texel, under Admiral de Winter, was to carry over a second army. This was to be commanded by General Daendels, an officer of great ability and decision.

On the 10th we went up to the Vlieder, which is a better Road than the Texel, and then to Amsterdam again, where Captain Blokes and his chief officers had to make Affidavits before a Notary Public to the truth of an Abstract of our Voyage, the which I had drawn up from the Log of the Marquis, to justify our proceedings to our own Government in answer to what the East India Company had to allege against us; they being, as we were informed, resolved to trouble us on pretence that we had Encroached upon their Charter.