own. At eighteen he sate among the fathers of the
commonwealth, grave, discreet, and judicious as the oldest among them.
At twenty-one, in a day of gloom and terror, he was placed at the head
of the administration. At twenty-three he was renowned throughout Europe
as a soldier and a politician. He had put domestic factions under his
feet: he was the soul of a mighty coalition; and he had contended with
honour in the field against some of the greatest generals of the age.

His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior than of a statesman:
but he, like his greatgrandfather, the silent prince who founded the
Batavian commonwealth, occupies a far higher place among statesmen than
among warriors. The event of battles, indeed, is not an unfailing test
of the abilities of a commander; and it would be peculiarly unjust to
apply this test to William: for it was his fortune to be almost always
opposed to captains who were consummate masters of their art, and to
troops far superior in discipline to his own. Yet there is reason to
believe that he was by no means equal, as a general in the field, to
some who ranked far below him in intellectual powers. To those whom he
trusted he spoke on this subject with the magnanimous frankness of a man
who had done great things, and who could well afford to acknowledge some
deficiencies. He had never, he said, served an apprenticeship to the
military profession. He had been placed, while still a boy, at the head
of an army. Among his officers there had been none competent to instruct
him. His own blunders and their consequences had been his only lessons.
"I would give," he once exclaimed, "a good part of my estates to have
served a few campaigns under the Prince of Conde before I had to command
against him." It is not improbable that the circumstance which prevented
William from attaining any eminent dexterity in strategy may have been
favourable to the general vigour of his intellect. If his battles were
not those of a great tactician, they entitled him to be called a great
man. No disaster could for one moment deprive him of his firmness or of
the entire possession of all his faculties. His defeats were repaired
with such marvellous celerity that, before his enemies had sung the Te
Deum, he was again ready for conflict; nor did his adverse fortune ever
deprive him of the respect and confidence of his soldiers. That respect
and confidence he owed in no small measure to his personal courage.