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The Mynheers, however, were not inclined to listen to reason, but, waking up and seeing some strangers in their harbour, they hurried to their guns, and began firing away at us. Their aim was not very good, and few shots hit us. On we steadily sailed. Suddenly there was a cry of disappointment; the wind had shifted, and, coming down the harbour, very nearly drove us on shore.
The boatswains were ordered to place themselves at the heads of parties with ladders to scale the walls, and crowbars to break open the gates. Mr Johnson was in high glee. "We shall see what we shall see, and I am very much mistaken if we don't teach the Mynheers a lesson they will not easily forget," he exclaimed, as he reviewed the articles under his directions.
But the interest of the day's proceedings for us is centred neither in the learned discourse of our friend Van Systens, however eloquent it might be, nor in the young dandies, resplendent in their Sunday clothes, and munching their heavy cakes; nor in the poor young peasants, gnawing smoked eels as if they were sticks of vanilla sweetmeat; neither is our interest in the lovely Dutch girls, with red cheeks and ivory bosoms; nor in the fat, round mynheers, who had never left their homes before; nor in the sallow, thin travellers from Ceylon or Java; nor in the thirsty crowds, who quenched their thirst with pickled cucumbers; no, so far as we are concerned, the real interest of the situation, the fascinating, dramatic interest, is not to be found here.
Danish and Swedish knights prolong the procession, mingling with Australian wool-growers, Members of the French Royal Academy, Canadian timber- merchants, Dutch Mynheers, Brazilian coffee-planters, Belgian lace- makers, and the representatives of all other countries and professions in Christendom.
He followed up the vow by jumping off his horse, and making his way past the staring Mynheers into the public room.
She had gone but a short distance, when a sail, which had been sighted at daylight coming from the northward, approached under Dutch colours. "Mynheers and I have always been friendly, and if yonder vessel has any spars on board, I doubt not that her Captain will gladly supply us with anything we want."
Of course, such things were for the Dutch; and it was strange presumption in an Englishman, though he might have won a victory which had saved the State, to expect that his pretensions would be considered till all the Mynheers about the palace had been served.
From the spot where they stood, his Highness and his attendant heard the tumult and the heavy tramp of the crowd on the staircase of the Town-hall. The noise thereupon sounded through the windows of the hall, on the balcony of which Mynheers Bowelt and D'Asperen had presented themselves.
"I thought you had reference to a private person, to one of those rich mynheers whom I have met at your house. I told you so, Princess, and you did not contradict me. You left me under the impression that it was a merchant of Holland who was offering his help and protection. From a private citizen I could have accepted aid, for that pledged the man, not the Prince.
This perilous enterprise was to be conducted by Oloffe himself, who chose as lieutenants, or coadjutors, Mynheers Abraham Harden Broeck, Jacobus Van Zandt, and Winant Ten Broeck three indubitably great men, but of whose history, although I have made diligent inquiry, I can learn but little previous to their leaving Holland.
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