and the good conduct of Netherlanders.

The results of this expedition were considerable, for the king's navy was
crippled, a great city was destroyed, and some millions of plunder had
been obtained. But the permanent possession of Cadiz, which, in such
case, Essex hoped to exchange for Calais, and the destruction of the
fleet at the Azores--possible achievements both, and unwisely
neglected--would have been far more profitable, at least to England. It
was also matter of deep regret that there was much quarrelling between
the Netherlanders and the Englishmen as to their respective share of the
spoils; the Netherlanders complaining loudly that they had been
defrauded. Moreover the merchants of Middelburg, Amsterdam, and other
commercial cities of Holland and Zeeland were, as it proved, the real
owners of a large portion of the property destroyed or pillaged at Cadiz;
so that a loss estimated as high as three hundred thousand florins fell
upon those unfortunate traders through this triumph of the allies.

The internal consequences of the fall of Calais had threatened at the
first moment to be as disastrous as the international results of that
misfortune had already proved. The hour for the definite dismemberment
and partition of the French kingdom, not by foreign conquerors but among
its own self-seeking and disloyal grandees, seemed to have struck. The
indomitable Henry, ever most buoyant when most pressed by misfortune, was
on the way to his camp at La Fere, encouraging the faint-hearted, and
providing as well as he could for the safety of the places most menaced,
when he was met at St. Quentin by a solemn deputation of the principal
nobles, military commanders, and provincial governors of France. The Duke
of Montpensier was spokesman of the assembly, and, in an harangue
carefully prepared for the occasion, made an elaborate proposition to the
king that the provinces, districts, cities, castles; and other
strong-holds throughout the kingdom should now be formally bestowed upon
the actual governors and commandants thereof in perpetuity, and as
hereditary property, on condition of rendering a certain military service
to the king and his descendants. It seemed so amazing that this temporary
disaster to the national arms should be used as a pretext for parcelling
out France, and converting a great empire into a number of insignificant
duchies and petty principalities; that this movement should be made, not
by the partisans