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Updated: June 21, 2025
Twenty-six vessels of small size but of good sailing qualities, according to the idea of the epoch, were provided, together with four tenders. Of this fleet the command was offered to Jacob van Heemskerk. He accepted with alacrity, expressing with his usual quiet self-confidence the hope that, living or dead, his fatherland would have cause to thank him.
He seemed to remember as one single, fearful picture all the ruthless and terrible scenes of the last year. Henry uttered again that cry which was at once a defiance and a signal, and from the forest ahead of him it was answered, signal for signal. The riflemen were coming, Paul, Long Jim, and Heemskerk at their head.
Select crews of entirely unmarried men volunteered for the enterprise. John Cornelisz van der Ryp, an experienced sea-captain, was placed in charge of one of the vessels, William Barendz was upper pilot of the other, and Heemskerk, "the man who ever steered his way through ice or iron," was skipper and supercargo. The ships sailed from the Vlie on the 18th May.
"It was one long, long tramp for me, Mynheer Henry," said Heemskerk, as he revolved slowly up to the camp fire where Henry was eating his breakfast, "and I am now very tired. It was like walking four or five times around Holland, which is such a fine little country, with the canals and the flowers along them, and no great, dark woods filled with the fierce Iroquois."
The latitude, from concurrent measurement of the Giant, the Bull, Orion, Aldebaran, and other constellations in the absence of the sun was ascertained to be a little above seventy-six degrees, and the variations of the needle were accurately noted. On the 24th January it was clear weather and comparatively mild, so that Heemskerk, with De Veer and another, walked to the strand.
The splendid victory of Heemskerk had struck the government with dismay and diffused a panic along the coast. The mercantile fleets, destined for either India, dared not venture forth so long as the terrible Dutch cruisers, which had just annihilated a splendid Spanish fleet, commanded by a veteran of Lepanto, and under the very guns of Gibraltar, were supposed to be hovering off the Peninsula.
But Shif'less Sol and Heemskerk took the band on the flanks, pouring in a destructive fire, and Wyatt, Coleman, and a fourth of his band, all that survived, broke into a run for the town. The riflemen uttered shout after shout of triumph, and it was impossible to restrain their pursuit.
It was strange that the new commonwealth, in the very moment of extorting her freedom from the ancient tyranny, should be so unconscious of her strength as to think free papers from neutral powers a boon. As if the sign-manual of James and Henry were a better guarantee than the trophies of the Nassaus, of Heemskerk, of Matelieff, and of Olden-Barneveld!
But Heemskerk, who had far more presence of mind and courage, stood still, and swore that he would put a boat hook he held in his hand, into the first man who attempted to fly.
Off the Ice-hook, both boats came alongside each other, and Skipper Heemskerk called out to William Barendz to ask how it was with him. "All right, mate," replied Barendz, cheerfully; "I hope to be on my legs again before we reach the Ward-huis." Then' he begged De Veer to lift him up, that he might look upon the Ice-hook once more.
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