And to Sir Francis himself, he wrote, even as his vessel was casting off her moorings:—­“I am sorry, Mr. Secretary,” he said, “to find you so discouraged, and that her Majesty doth deem you so partial.  And yet my suits to her Majesty have not of late been so many nor great, while the greatest, I am sure, are for her Majesty’s own service.  For my part, I will discharge my duty as far as my poor ability and capacity shall serve, and if I shall not have her gracious and princely support and supply, the lack will be to us, for the present, but the shame and dishonour will be hers.”

And with these parting words the Earl committed himself to the December seas.

Davison had been meantime doing his best to prepare the way in the Netherlands for the reception of the English administration.  What man could do, without money and without authority, he had done.  The governors for Flushing and the Brill, Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Thomas Cecil, eldest son of Lord Burghley, had been appointed, but had not arrived.  Their coming was anxiously looked for, as during the interval the condition of the garrisons was deplorable.  The English treasurer—­ by some unaccountable and unpardonable negligence, for which it is to be feared the Queen was herself to blame—­was not upon the spot, and Davison was driven out of his wits to devise expedients to save the soldiers from starving.

“Your Lordship has seen by my former letters,” wrote the Ambassador to Burghley from Flushing, “what shift I have been driven to for the relief of this garrison here, left ‘a l’abandon;’ without which mean they had all fallen into wild and shameful disorder, to her Majesty’s great disgrace and overthrow of her service.  I am compelled, unless I would see the poor men famish, and her Majesty aishonournd, to try my poor credit for them.”

General Sir John Norris was in the Betuwe, threatening Nvymegen, a town which he found “not so flexible as he had hoped;” and, as he had but two thousand men, while Alexander Farnese was thought to be marching upon him with ten thousand, his position caused great anxiety.  Meantime, his brother, Sir Edward, a hot-headed and somewhat wilful young man, who “thought that all was too little for him,” was giving the sober Davison a good deal of trouble.  He had got himself into a quarrel, both with that envoy and with Roger Williams, by claiming the right to control military matters in Flushing until the arrival of Sidney.  “If Sir Thomas and Sir Philip,” said Davison, “do not make choice of more discreet, staid, and expert commanders than those thrust into these places by Mr. Norris, they will do themselves a great deal of worry, and her Majesty a great deal of hurt.”