The distance from the place where the fleet and army were assembled to Nieuport—­the objective point of the enterprise—­was but thirty-five miles as the crow flies.  And the crow can scarcely fly in a straighter line than that described by the coast along which the ships were to shape their course.

And here it is again impossible not to reflect upon the change which physical science has brought over the conduct of human affairs.  We have seen in a former chapter a most important embassy sent forth from the States for the purpose of preventing the consummation of a peace between their ally and their enemy.  Celerity was a vital element in the success of such a mission; for the secret negotiations which it was intended to impede were supposed to be near their termination.  Yet months were consumed in a journey which in our day would have been accomplished in twenty-four hours.  And now in this great military expedition the essential and immediate purpose was to surprise a small town almost within sight from the station at which the army was ready to embark.  Such a midsummer voyage in this epoch of steam-tugs and transports would require but a few hours.  Yet two days long the fleet lay at anchor while a gentle breeze blew persistently from the south-west.  As there seemed but little hope that the wind would become more favourable, and as the possibility of surprise grew fainter with every day’s delay, it was decided to make a landing upon the nearest point of Flemish coast placed by circumstances within their reach:  Count Ernest of Nassau; with the advance-guard, was accordingly, despatched on the 21st June to the neighbourhood of the Sas-of Ghent, where he seized a weakly guarded fort, called Philippine, and made thorough preparations, for the arrival of the whole army.  On the following day the rest of the troops made their appearance, and in the course of five hours were safely disembarked.

The army, which consisted of Zeelanders, Frisians, Hollanders, Walloons, Germans, English, and Scotch, was divided into three corps.  The advance was under the command of Count Ernest, the battalia under that of Count George Everard Solms, while the rear-guard during the march was entrusted to that experienced soldier Sir Francis Vere.  Besides Prince Maurice, there were three other members of the house of Nassau serving in the expedition—­his half-brother Frederic Henry, then a lad of sixteen, and the two brothers of the Frisian stadholder, Ernest and Lewis Gunther, whom Lewis William had been so faithfully educating in the arts of peace and war both by precept and example.  Lewis Gunther, still a mere youth, but who had been the first to scale the fort of Cadiz, and to plant on its height the orange banner of the murdered rebel, and whose gallantry during the whole expedition had called forth the special commendations of Queen Elizabeth—­expressed in energetic and affectionate terms to his father—­now commanded all the cavalry.  Certainly if the doctrine