met his cavalry which had been sent forward at full speed, in the vain hope of seizing or destroying the bridge before it should be too late, he took up a position behind a dyke, upon which he placed his two field-pieces, and formed his troops in line of battle exactly across the enemy’s path.  On the right he placed the regiment of Scots.  On the left was Van der Noot’s Zeeland infantry, garnished with four companies of riders under Risoir, which stood near St. Mary’s church.  The passage from the stream to the downs was not more than a hundred yards wide, being skirted on both sides by a swamp.  Here Ernest with his two thousand men awaited the onset of the archduke’s army.  He was perfectly aware that it was a mere question of time, but he was sure that his preparations must interpose a delay to the advance of the Spaniards, should his troops, as he felt confident, behave themselves as they had always done, and that the delay would be of inestimable value to his friends at the haven of Nieuport.

The archduke paused; for he, too, could not be certain, on observing the resolute front thus presented to him, that he was not about to engage the whole of the States’ army.  The doubt was but of short duration, however, and the onset was made.  Ernest’s artillery fired four volleys into the advancing battalions with such effect as to stagger them for a moment, but they soon afterwards poured over the dyke in over whelming numbers, easily capturing the cannon.  The attack began upon Ernest’s left, and Risoir’s cavalry, thinking that they should be cut off from all possibility of retreat into Fort St. Albert, turned their backs in the most disgraceful manner, without even waiting for the assault.  Galloping around the infantry on the left they infected the Zeelanders with their own cowardice.  Scarcely a moment passed before Van der Noot’s whole regiment was running away as fast as the troopers, while the Scots on the right hesitated not for an instant to follow their example.  Even before the expected battle had begun, one of those hideous and unaccountable panics which sometimes break out like a moral pestilence to destroy all the virtue of an army, and to sweep away the best-considered schemes of a general, had spread through Ernest’s entire force.  So soon as the demi-cannon had discharged their fourth volley, Scots, Zeelanders, Walloons, pikemen, musketeers, and troopers, possessed by the demon of cowardice, were running like a herd of swine to throw themselves into the sea.  Had they even kept the line of the downs in the direction of the fort many of them might have saved their lives, although none could have escaped disgrace.  But the Scots, in an ecstasy of fear, throwing away their arms as they fled, ran through the waters behind the dyke, skimmed over the sands at full speed, and never paused till such as survived the sabre and musket of their swift pursuers had literally drowned themselves in the ocean.  Almost every man of them was slain