Yet it was thought that a republic, which could produce men like Regnier Klaaszoon and his comrades, could be subjected again to despotism, after a war for independence of forty years, and that such sailors could be forbidden to sail the eastern and western seas.  No epigrammatic phrase has been preserved of this simple Regnier, the son of Nicholas.  He only did what is sometimes talked about in phraseology more or less melo-dramatic, and did it in a very plain way.

Such extreme deeds may have become so much less necessary in the world, that to threaten them is apt to seem fantastic.  Exactly at that crisis of history, however, and especially in view of the Dutch admiral commanding having refused a combat of one to three, the speechless self-devotion of the vice-admiral was better than three years of eloquent arguments and a ship-load of diplomatic correspondence, such as were already impending over the world.

Admiral Haultain returned with all his ships uninjured—­the six missing vessels having found their way at last safely back to the squadron—­but with a very great crack to his reputation.  It was urged very justly, both by the States-General and the public, that if one ship under a determined commander could fight the whole Spanish fleet two days and nights, and sink unconquered at last, ten ships more might have put the enemy to flight, or at least have saved the vice-admiral from destruction.

But very few days after the incidents just described, the merchant fleet which, instead of Don Luis Fazardo’s war galleons, Admiral Haultain had so longed to encounter, arrived safely at San Lucar.  It was the most splendid treasure-fleet that had ever entered a Spanish port, and the Dutch admiral’s heart might well have danced for joy, had he chanced to come a little later on the track.  There were fifty ships, under charge of General Alonzo de Ochares Galindo and General Ganevaye.  They had on board, according to the registers, 1,914,176 dollars worth of bullion for the king, and 6,086,617 dollars for merchants, or 8,000,000 dollars in all, besides rich cargoes of silk, cochineal, sarsaparilla, indigo, Brazil wood, and hides; the result of two years of pressure upon Peruvians, Mexicans, and Brazilians.  Never had Spanish finances been at so low an ebb.  Never was so splendid an income more desirable.  The king’s share of the cargo was enough to pay half the arrearages due to his mutinous troops; and for such housekeeping this was to be in funds.

There were no further exploits on land or sea that year.  There were, however, deaths of three personages often mentioned in this history.  The learned Justus Lipsius died in Louvain, a good editor and scholar, and as sincere a Catholic at last as he had been alternately a bigoted Calvinist and an earnest Lutheran.  His reputation was thought to have suffered by his later publications, but the world at large was occupied with sterner stuff than those classic productions, and left the final decision to posterity.