He quietly announced to his officers and men his decision never to
surrender, in which all concurred. They knelt together upon the deck,
and the admiral made a prayer, which all fervently joined. With his own
hand Klaaszoon then lighted the powder magazine, and the ship was blown
into the air. Two sailors, all that were left alive, were picked out of
the sea by the Spaniards and brought on board one of the vessels of the
fleet. Desperately mutilated, those grim Dutchmen lived a few minutes to
tell the tale, and then died defiant on the enemy's deck.

Yet it was thought that a republic, which could produce men like Regnier
Klaaszoon and his comrades, could be subjected again to despotism, after
a war for independence of forty years, and that such sailors could be
forbidden to sail the eastern and western seas. No epigrammatic phrase
has been preserved of this simple Regnier, the son of Nicholas. He only
did what is sometimes talked about in phraseology more or less melo-
dramatic, and did it in a very plain way.

Such extreme deeds may have become so much less necessary in the world,
that to threaten them is apt to seem fantastic. Exactly at that crisis
of history, however, and especially in view of the Dutch admiral
commanding having refused a combat of one to three, the speechless self-
devotion of the vice-admiral was better than three years of eloquent
arguments and a ship-load of diplomatic correspondence, such as were
already impending over the world.

Admiral Haultain returned with all his ships uninjured--the six missing
vessels having found their way at last safely back to the squadron--but
with a very great crack to his reputation. It was urged very justly,
both by the States-General and the public, that if one ship under a