Maurice, against the express advice of Vere, decided to send his cousin Ernest, with the main portion of the force established on the right bank of the harbour, in search of the archduke, for the purpose of holding him in check long enough to enable the rest of the army to cross the water when the tide should serve.  The enemy, it was now clear, would advance by precisely the path over which the States’ army had marched that morning.  Ernest was accordingly instructed to move with the greatest expedition in order to seize the bridge at Leffingen before the archduke should reach the deep, dangerous, and marshy river, over which it was the sole passage to the downs.  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.

With a handful of troops he was to make head against an army, and the youth accepted the task in the cheerful spirit of self-sacrifice which characterized his house.  Marching as rapidly as the difficult ground would permit, he had the disappointment, on approaching the fatal point at about eight o’clock, to see the bridge at Leffingen in the possession of the enemy.  Maurice had sent off a messenger early that morning with a letter marked post haste (cito, cito) to Ostend ordering up some four hundred cavalry-men then stationed in that city under Piron and Bruges, to move up to the support of Ernest, and to destroy the bridge and dams at Leffingen before the enemy should arrive.  That letter, which might have been so effective, was delivered, as it subsequently appeared, exactly ten days after it was written.  The States, of their own authority, had endeavoured to send out those riders towards the scene of action, but it was with great difficulty that they could be got into the saddle at all, and they positively refused to go further than St. Albert fort.

What course should he now pursue?  He had been sent to cut the archduke’s road.  He had failed.  Had he remained in his original encampment his force would have been annihilated by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy so soon as they reached the right bank of Nieuport haven, while Maurice could have only looked hopelessly on from the opposite shore.  At least nothing worse than absolute destruction could befal him now.  Should he accept a combat of six or eight to one the struggle would be hopeless, but the longer it was protracted the better it would be for his main army, engaged at that very moment as he knew in crossing the haven with the ebbing tide.  Should he retreat, it might be possible for him to escape into Fort Albert or even Ostend, but to do so would be to purchase his own safety and that of his command at the probable sacrifice of the chief army of the republic.  Ernest hesitated but an instant.  Coming within carbine-shot of the stream, where he