enemies. The hard and miserable estate of the soldiers generally,
excepting officers, hath been such, as by the confessions of the captains
themselves, they have been offered by many of their soldiers thirty and
forty pounds a piece to be dismissed and sent away; whereby I doubt not
the flower of the pressed English bands are gone, and the remnant
supplied with such paddy persons as commonly, in voluntary procurements,
men are glad to accept."

Even after the expiration of four months the condition of the paddy
persons continued most destitute. The English soldiers became mere
barefoot starving beggars in the streets, as had never been the case in
the worst of times, when the States were their paymasters. The little
money brought from the treasury by the Earl, and the large sums which he
had contributed out of his own pocket, had been spent in settling, and
not fully settling, old scores. "Let me entreat you," wrote Leicester to
Walsingham, "to be a mean to her Majesty, that the poor soldiers be not
beaten for my sake. There came no penny of treasure over since my coming
hither. That which then came was most part due before it came. There is
much still due. They cannot get a penny, their credit is spent, they
perish for want of victuals and clothing in great numbers. The whole are
ready to mutiny. They cannot be gotten out to service, because they
cannot discharge the debts they owe in the places where they are. I have
let of my own more than I may spare."--"There was no soldier yet able to
buy himself a pair of hose," said the Earl again, "and it is too, too
great shame to see how they go, and it kills their hearts to show
themselves among men."

There was no one to dispute the Earl's claims. The Nassau family was
desperately poor, and its chief, young Maurice, although he had been
elected stadholder of Holland and Zeeland, had every disposition--as Sir