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Updated: June 10, 2025
He then made a rapid movement to the north, between Zwoll and Hasselt, endeavouring to cross the Blackwater, and seize Geelmuyden, on the Zuyder Zee. Had he succeeded, he might have turned Maurice's position.
From the Helder, a point of land at the southern entrance to the Zuyder Zee, a ship canal, fifty miles in length, extends to the city. This is the 'great ditch' of Holland. It is eighteen feet deep, and broad enough for two large ships to pass each other, having a double set of locks at each end, in order to keep the water of uniform height, as in a dock.
The stormy Zuyder Zee began its existence by engulfing thousands of Frisian villages, with all their population, and by spreading a chasm between kindred peoples. The political, as well as the geographical, continuity of the land was obliterated by this tremendous deluge.
Not the memorable deluge of the thirteenth century, out of which the Zuyder Zee was born; not that in which the waters of the Dollart had closed for ever over the villages and churches of Groningen; not one of those perpetually recurring floods by which the inhabitants of the Netherlands, year after year, were recalled to an anxious remembrance of the watery chaos out of which their fatherland had been created, and into which it was in daily danger of resolving itself again, had excited so much terror and caused so much destruction.
The Roman Drusus, who made war in these regions, had a canal cut from the Rhine into the Flevo, the present Zuyder Zee, through which the Roman fleet penetrated into the North Sea, and from thence, entering the mouths of the Ems and the Weser, found an easy passage into the interior of Germany.
With the flight of Van den Bergh, all the cities which, under his guidance, had raised the standard of Orange, deserted the cause at once. Friesland too, where Robles obtained a victory over six thousand patriots, again submitted to the yoke. But if the ancient heart of the free Frisians was beating thus feebly, there was still spirit left among their brethren on the other side of the Zuyder Zee.
At this work five hundred pioneers labored without intermission, and in order to cheer the toil of the soldiers the prince himself took part in it. In this way did he imitate the example of the two celebrated Romans, Drusus and Corbulo, who by similar works had united the Rhine with the Zuyder Zee, and the Maes with the Rhine?
From its harbour at the confluence of the estuary of the Y with the Zuyder Zee ships owned and manned by Hollanders sailed along the coasts of France and Spain to bring home the salt for curing purposes and with it wines and other southern products, while year by year a still larger and increasing number entered the Baltic.
During the time that Vanslyperken waited for the report of the lights, he passed over in his mind the untoward events which had taken place the loss of the widow's good-will, the loss of Corporal Van Spitter, who was adrift in the Zuyder Zee, the loss of five thousand pounds through the dog, and, strange to say, what vexed him more, the loss of the dog's eye; and when he thought of all these things his heart was elated, and he rejoiced in the death of Smallbones, and no longer felt any compunction.
Certainly, gentlemen, this would have been an honor far above the merits of such inconsiderable rascals to be spitted like larks upon a Cartesian sword; and therefore I am glad M. Des Cartes did not rob the gallows by executing his threat, especially as he could not possibly have brought his vessel to port, after he had murdered his crew; so that he must have continued to cruise for ever in the Zuyder Zee, and would probably have been mistaken by sailors for the Flying Dutchman, homeward bound.
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