He referred particularly to the days of Tromp,
whose ravaging and victorious navy was composed largely of Hoorn ships.
Cape Horn, at the foot of South America, is the name-child of the Dutch
port, for the first to discover the passage round that headland and to
give it its style was Willem Schouten, a Hoorn sailor. It was another
Hoorn sailor, Abel Tasman, who discovered Van Diemen's Land (now called
after him) and also New Zealand; and a third, Jan Pieters Coen (whose
statue may be seen at Hoorn) who founded the Dutch dominions in the
East Indies, and thus changed the whole character of his own country,
leading to that orientalising to which I have so often referred.
A more picturesque hero was John Haring of Hoorn, who performed a
great feat in 1572, when De Sonoy, the Prince of Orange's general,
was fighting De Bossu, the Spanish Admiral, off the Y, just at the
beginning of the siege of Haarlem. An unexpected force of Spaniards
from Amsterdam overwhelmed the few men whom De Sonoy had mustered
for the defence of the Diemerdyk. I quote Motley's account: "Sonoy,
who was on his way to their rescue, was frustrated in his design
by the unexpected faint-heartedness of the volunteers whom he had
enlisted at Edam. Braving a thousand perils, he advanced, almost
unattended, in his little vessel, but only to witness the overthrow
and expulsion of his band.
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