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Updated: June 13, 2025
Thus the whole fiery fleet had set forth, almost at once, upon its fatal voyage. It was known to Parma that preparations for an attack were making at Antwerp, but as to the nature of the danger he was necessarily in the dark. He was anticipating an invasion by a fleet from the city in combination with a squadron of Zeelanders coming up from below.
When the commander-in-chief with his eight hundred horsemen, Englishmen, Zeelanders, Hollanders, and Germans, came upon the heath, the position and purpose of the enemy were plainly visible. He was not drawn up in battle order, waiting to sweep down upon his rash assailants so soon as, after struggling through the difficult pass, they should be delivered into his hands.
But the general had not campaigned a generation before, at the age of sixty-nine, in the bottom of the sea, and waded chin-deep for six hours long of an October night, in the face of a rising tide from the German Ocean and of an army of Zeelanders, to be frightened now at the summer aspect of the peaceful Rhine.
Two thousand infantry, being the Scotch regiment of Edmonds and the Zeelanders of Van der Noot, four squadrons of Dutch cavalry, and two pieces of artillery composed the force with which Ernest set forth at a little before dawn on his hazardous but heroic enterprise.
He was indefatigable night and day in getting his boats together and providing his munitions of war. He dug a canal from Sas de Gand which was one of his principal depots all the way to Sluys, because the water-communication between those two points was entirely in the hands of the Hollanders and Zeelanders.
With prodigious energy and at great expense he had constructed or improved internal water-communications from Ghent to Sluy's, Newport, and Dunkerk. He had, thus transported all his hoys, barges, and munitions for the invasion, from all points of the obedient Netherlands to the sea-coast, without coming within reach of the Hollanders and Zeelanders, who were keeping close watch on the outside.
A squadron of strong well-armed vessels, having on board, in addition to their regular equipment, a picked force of twelve hundred musketeers, long accustomed to this peculiar kind of naval warfare, with crews of, grim Zeelanders, who had faced Alva, and Valdez in their day, now kept close watch over Farnese, determined that he should never thrust his face out of any haven or nook on the coast so long as they should be in existence to prevent him.
To the Queen's glorious naval-commanders, to the dauntless mariners of England, with their well-handled vessels; their admirable seamanship, their tact and their courage, belonged the joys of the contest, the triumph, and the glorious pursuit; but to the patient Hollanders and Zeelanders, who, with their hundred vessels held Farneae, the chief of the great enterprise, at bay, a close prisoner with his whole army in his own ports, daring him to the issue, and ready to the last plank of their fleet and to the last drop of their blood to confront both him and the Duke of Medina Sidona, an equal share of honour is due.
The decks of all the vessels ran with blood, but at last the Black Galley succeeded in beating off her assailants; the Zeelanders, by main force, breaking off the enemy's bowsprits, so that the two ships of Spinola were glad to sheer off, leaving their stings buried in the enemy's body. Next, four galleys attacked the stout little galleot of Captain Logier, and with a very similar result.
But the beavers did not toil unmolested. The large and determined force of Antwerpers and English, Hollanders and Zeelanders, guarded the fortifications as they were rapidly rising, and the pioneers as they were so manfully delving; but the enemy was not idle. From Fort Saint James, next beyond Saint George, Camillo del Monte led a strong party to the rescue.
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