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A penal offence in the
republic to talk of peace or of truce
Accepting a new tyrant
in place of the one so long ago deposed
As if they were free
will not make them free
As neat a deception
by telling the truth
Cargo of imaginary gold
dust was exported from the James River
Delay often fights better
than an army against a foreign invader
Diplomacy of Spain and
Rome—meant simply dissimulation
Draw a profit out of
the necessities of this state
England hated the Netherlands
Friendly advice still
more intolerable
Haereticis non servanda
fides
He who confessed well
was absolved well
Insensible to contumely,
and incapable of accepting a rebuff
Languor of fatigue,
rather than any sincere desire for peace
Much as the blind or
the deaf towards colour or music
Subtle and dangerous
enemy who wore the mask of a friend
Word peace in Spanish
mouths simply meant the Holy Inquisition
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year’s Truce—1609
By John Lothrop Motley
History United Netherlands, Volume 79, 1607
CHAPTER XLVII.
A Dutch fleet under Heemskerk sent to the coast of Spain and Portugal—Encounter with the Spanish war fleet under D’Avila—Death of both commanders-in-chief—Victory of the Netherlanders—Massacre of the Spaniards.
The States-General had not been inclined to be tranquil under the check which Admiral Haultain had received upon the coast of Spain in the autumn of 1606. The deed of terrible self-devotion by which Klaaszoon and his comrades had in that crisis saved the reputation of the republic, had proved that her fleets needed only skilful handling and determined leaders to conquer their enemy in the Western seas as certainly as they had done in the archipelagos of the East. And there was one pre-eminent naval commander, still in the very prime of life, but seasoned by an experience at the poles and in the tropics such as few mariners in that early but expanding maritime epoch could boast. Jacob van Heemskerk, unlike many of the navigators and ocean warriors who had made and were destined to make the Orange flag of the United Provinces illustrious over the world, was not of humble parentage. Sprung of an ancient, knightly race, which had frequently distinguished itself in his native province of Holland, he had followed the seas almost from his cradle. By turns a commercial voyager, an explorer, a privateer’s-man, or an admiral of war-fleets, in days when sharp distinctions between the merchant service and the public service, corsairs’ work and cruisers’ work, did not exist, he had ever proved himself equal to any