countries, and here they brought and buried the booty of many a wild adventure.  Here, at a later day, Rollo the Dane had that memorable dream of leprosy, the cure of which was the conversion of North Gaul into Normandy, of Pagans into Christians, and the subsequent conquest of every throne in Christendom from Ultima Thule to Byzantium.  And now the descendant of those early freebooters had come back to the spot, at a moment when a wider and even more imperial swoop was to be made by their modern representatives.  For the sea-kings of the sixteenth century—­the Drakes, Hawkinses, Frobishers, Raleighs, Cavendishes—­the De Moors, Heemskerks, Barendts—­all sprung of the old pirate-lineage, whether called Englanders or Hollanders, and instinct with the same hereditary love of adventure, were about to wrestle with ancient tyrannies, to explore the most inaccessible regions, and to establish new commonwealths in worlds undreamed of by their ancestors—­ to accomplish, in short, more wondrous feats than had been attempted by the Knuts, and Rollos, Rurics, Ropers, and Tancreds, of an earlier age.

The place which Sidney was appointed to govern was one of great military and commercial importance.  Flushing was the key to the navigation of the North Seas, ever since the disastrous storm of a century before, in which a great trading city on the outermost verge of the island had been swallowed bodily by the ocean.  The Emperor had so thoroughly recognized its value, as to make special mention of the necessity for its preservation, in his private instructions to Philip, and now the Queen of England had confided it to one who was competent to appreciate and to defend the prize.  “How great a jewel this place (Flushing) is to the crown of England,” wrote Sidney to his Uncle Leicester, “and to the Queen’s safety, I need not now write it to your lordship, who knows it so well.  Yet I must needs say, the better I know it, the more I find the preciousness of it.”

He did not enter into his government, however, with much pomp and circumstance, but came afoot into Flushing in the midst of winter and foul weather.  “Driven to land at Rammekins,” said he, “because the wind began to rise in such sort as from thence our mariners durst not enter the town, I came with as dirty a walk as ever poor governor entered his charge withal.”  But he was cordially welcomed, nor did he arrive by any means too soon.

“I find the people very glad of our coming,” he said, “and promise myself as much surety in keeping this town, as popular good-will, gotten by light hopes, and by as slight conceits, may breed; for indeed the garrison is far too weak to command by authority, which is pity . . . .  I think, truly, that if my coming had been longer delayed, some alteration would have followed; for the truth is, this people is weary of war, and if they do not see such a course taken as may be likely to defend them, they will in a sudden give over the cause. . . .  All will be lost if government be not presently used.”