the hand of Princess Charlotte, heir-presumptive to the Crown of England.  He had been ousted.  And by whom?  By Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, whom we had just made King of the Belgians.  In spite of these causes for coldness, at all events, the welcome I was given by the King, his family, and by every class of that honest and well-behaved Dutch race, was marked by a constantly increasing kindliness, which filled Bois-le-Comte and his very witty secretary, La Rosiere, with delight.  Just at the moment of parting, the King made me a present of an admirable copy in reduced size of Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson, which hung in his study, saying, “You are going to Newfoundland; you shall bring me back a dog in exchange,” which commission I faithfully executed.

To finish up my visit to Holland, I paid a visit to the Naval Arsenal at Flushing, and as I passed through Zeeland I saw from afar, and not without emotion, the belfry towers of Bergen-op-Zoom, a town which witnessed the performance of two of the most brilliant exploits in our annals.  The first—­the taking of the stronghold by assault, by Marshal de Lowendal’s army, in 1747.  The second—­the assault delivered on it on the 8th and 9th of March, 1814, by the whole English army, and triumphantly repulsed by a handful of soldiers and sailors commanded by General Bizannet.  The assault under Marshal de Lowendal has been commemorated first of all in a celebrated song, and later by an admirable drawing in body colour by Van Blarenberg, which is to be seen in the Versailles Museum.  But the exploit of 1814 has been almost lost sight of amid our disasters and the subsequent invasion.  Very few people are aware that the British army made a forcible attack on Bergen-op-Zoom, getting into the town by the port at low tide, and scaling the ramparts, led and backed up by the inhabitants, who had risen in favour of the House of Orange, and that the enemy’s columns got as far as the middle of the town, whence, after twelve hours’ fighting, they were driven over the ramparts by the resolute bravery of the defending force, leaving more prisoners in its hands than its own fighting men numbered.  The details of this splendid page of military history should be read as told by Colonel Legrand of the Engineers, who commanded under General Bizannet.  In them, among other dramatic incidents, will be found an episode about a bellringer, which is almost identical with the one Sardou has incorporated in his fine play Patrie.

From the Texel, or, to be more exact, from Neu-Diep to Newfoundland, by the north coast of Scotland, the passage, though we made it without disaster, was terribly trying to both our crews and our ships, which last were much damaged, and lost nearly all their sails.  An incessant series of gales kept us under green seas nearly all the time.  Upon these followed thick fogs, and finally we fell among numberless icebergs.  So it was with a lively sense of relief that I found myself anchored at last within the haven of Le Croc, the headquarters of our squadron during the fishing season.  The haven was itself so obstructed with ice that on the very night of my arrival, with the help of my cook and some tins of jam, I was able to serve up Neapolitan ices to my staff, like Tortoni himself.