or drowned.  All the captains—­Stuart, Barclay, Murray, Kilpatrick, Michael, Nesbit—­with the rest of the company officers, doing their best to rally the fugitives, were killed.  The Zeelanders, more cautious in the midst of their panic, or perhaps knowing better the nature of the country, were more successful in saving their necks.  Not more than a hundred and fifty of Van der Noot’s regiment were killed, while such of the cavalry of Bruges and Piron as had come to the neighbourhood of Fort Albert, not caring to trust themselves to the shelter of that redoubt, now fled as fast as their horses’ legs would carry them, and never pulled bridle till they found themselves in Ostend.  And so beside themselves with panic were these fugitives, and so virulent was the contagion, that it was difficult to prevent the men who had remained in the fort from joining in the flight towards Ostend.  Many of them indeed threw themselves over the walls and were sabred by the enemy when they might have been safe within the fortifications.  Had these cavalry companies of Bruges and Piron been even tolerably self-possessed, had they concentrated themselves in the fort instead of yielding to the delirium which prompted them to participate in their comrades’ flight, they would have had it entirely in their power, by making an attack, or even the semblance of an attack, by means of a sudden sally from the fort, to have saved, not the battle indeed, but a large number of lives.  But the panic was hopeless and universal, and countless fugitives scrambling by the fort were shot in a leisurely manner by a comparative few of the enemy as easily as the rabbits which swarmed in those sands were often knocked down in multitudes by half-a-dozen sportsmen.

And thus a band of patriots, who were not cowards by nature, and who had often played the part of men, had horribly disgraced themselves, and were endangering the very existence of their country, already by mistaken councils brought within the jaws of death.  The glory of Thermopyla; might have hung for ever over that bridge of Leffingen.  It was now a pass of infamy, perhaps of fatal disaster.  The sands were covered with weapons-sabre, pike, and arquebus—­thrown away by almost every soldier as he fled to save the life which after all was sacrificed.  The artillery, all the standards and colours, all the baggage and ammunition, every thing was lost.  No viler panic, no more complete defeat was ever recorded.  Such at half-past eight in the morning was that memorable Sunday of the 2nd July, 1600, big with the fate of the Dutch republic —­the festival of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, always thought of happy augury for Spanish arms.

Thus began the long expected battle of Nieuport.  At least a thousand of the choicest troops of the stadholder were slain, while the Spanish had hardly lost a man.