The States-General, a month before, had sent twenty-five or thirty good
ships, under Admiral Rosendael, to join Lord Henry Seymour, then cruising
between Dover and Calais. A tempest, drove them back, and their absence
from Lord Henry's fleet being misinterpreted by the English, the States
were censured for ingratitude and want of good faith. But the injustice
of the accusation was soon made manifest, for these vessels, reinforcing
the great Dutch fleet outside the banks, did better service than they
could have done; in the straits. A squadron of strong well-armed
vessels, having on board, in addition to their regular equipment,
a picked force of twelve hundred musketeers, long accustomed to this
peculiar kind of naval warfare, with crews of, grim Zeelanders, who had
faced Alva, and Valdez in their day, now kept close watch over Farnese,
determined that he should never thrust his face out of any haven or nook
on the coast so long as they should be in existence to prevent him.

And in England the protracted diplomacy at Ostend, ill-timed though
it was, had not paralyzed the arm or chilled the heart of the nation.
When the great Queen, arousing herself from the delusion in which the
falsehoods of Farnese and of Philip had lulled her, should once more.
represent--as no man or woman better than Elizabeth Tudor could represent
--the defiance of England to foreign insolence; the resolve of a whole
people to die rather than yield; there was a thrill of joy through the
national heart. When the enforced restraint was at last taken off, there
was one bound towards the enemy. Few more magnificent spectacles have
been seen in history than the enthusiasm which pervaded the country as
the great danger, so long deferred, was felt at last to be closely
approaching. The little nation of four millions, the merry England of
the sixteenth century, went forward to the death-grapple with its
gigantic antagonist as cheerfully as to a long-expected holiday.
Spain was a vast empire, overshadowing the world; England, in comparison,