in every hollow, while on the highest and most advantageous elevation two pieces of cannon had been placed by the express direction of Maurice.  It seemed obvious that the battle would, after all, be transferred to the downs.  Not long before the action began, a private of the enemy’s cavalry was taken, apparently with his own consent, in a very trifling preliminary skirmish.  He bragged loudly of the immense force of the archduke, of the great victory already gained over Ernest, with the utter annihilation of his forces, and of the impending destruction of the whole States’ army.  Strange to say, this was the first intimation received by Count Lewis of that grave disaster, although it had been for some hours known to Maurice.  The prisoner was at once gagged, that he might spread his disheartening news no further, but as he persisted by signs and gestures in attempting to convey the information which he had evidently been sent forward to impart, he was shot by command of the stadholder, and so told no further tales.

The enemy had now come very close, and it was the desire of Count Lewis that a couple of companies of horse, in accordance with the commands of Maurice, should charge the cavalry in front, and that after a brief skirmish they should retreat as if panic-stricken behind the advance column, thus decoying the Spanish vanguard in hot pursuit towards the battery upon the edge of the downs.  The cannon were then suddenly to open upon them, and during the confusion sure to be created in their ranks, the musketeers, ambushed among the hollows, were to attack them in flank, while the cavalry in one mass should then make a concentrated charge in front.  It seemed certain that the effect of this movement would be to hurl the whole of the enemy’s advance, horse and foot, back upon his battalia, and thus to break up his army in irretrievable rout.  The plan was a sensible one, but it was not ingeniously executed.  Before the handful of cavalry had time to make the proposed feint the cannoneers, being unduly excited, and by express command of Sir Francis Vere, fired a volley into the advancing columns of the archduke.  This precipitated the action; almost in an instant changed its whole character, and defeated the original plan of the republican leader.  The enemy’s cavalry broke at the first discharge from the battery, and wheeled in considerable disorder, but without panic, quite into and across the downs.  The whole army of the archduke, which had already been veering in the same direction, as it advanced, both because the tide was so steadily devouring the even surface of the sands, and because the position of a large portion of the States’ forces among the hillocks exposed him to an attack in flank, was now rapidly transferred to the downs.  It was necessary for that portion of Maurice’s army which still stood on what remained of the beach to follow this movement.  A rapid change of front was then undertaken, and—­thanks to the careful system of wheeling, marching, and counter-marching in which the army had been educated by William Lewis and Maurice—­was executed with less confusion than might have been expected.