These views having been discussed in
a council of officers, the result was reached that sufficient had been
already accomplished for the glory of the Spanish arms. Neither honour
nor loyalty, it was thought, required that sixteen thousand soldiers
should be sacrificed in a contest, not with man, but with the ocean.
"On the 8th of October, accordingly, the siege, which had lasted
seven weeks, was raised, and Don Frederic rejoined his father in
Amsterdam. Ready to die in the last ditch, and to overwhelm both
themselves and their foes in a common catastrophe, the Hollanders had
at last compelled their haughty enemy to fly from a position which
he had so insolently assumed."
Every one is agreed that Hoorn should be approached by water,
because it rises from the sea like an enchanted city of the East,
with its spires and its Harbour Tower beautifully unreal. And as the
ship comes nearer there is the additional interest of wondering how
the apparently landlocked harbour is to be entered, a long green bar
seeming to stretch unbrokenly from side to side. At the last minute
the passage is revealed, and one glides into this romantic port. I
put Hoorn next to Middelburg in the matter of charm, but seen from
the sea it is of greater fascination.
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