Courage, in the degree which is necessary to carry a soldier without
disgrace through a campaign, is possessed, or might, under proper
training, be acquired, by the great majority of men. But courage like
that of William is rare indeed. He was proved by every test; by war,
by wounds, by painful and depressing maladies, by raging seas, by the
imminent and constant risk of assassination, a risk which has shaken
very strong nerves, a risk which severely tried even the adamantine
fortitude of Cromwell. Yet none could ever discover what that thing was
which the Prince of Orange feared. His advisers could with difficulty
induce him to take any precaution against the pistols and daggers of
conspirators. [209] Old sailors were amazed at the composure which he
preserved amidst roaring breakers on a perilous coast. In battle his
bravery made him conspicuous even among tens of thousands of brave
warriors, drew forth the generous applause of hostile armies, and was
never questioned even by the injustice of hostile factions. During his
first campaigns he exposed himself like a man who sought for death, was
always foremost in the charge and last in the retreat, fought, sword in
hand, in the thickest press, and, with a musket ball in his arm and the
blood streaming over his cuirass, still stood his ground and waved his
hat under the hottest fire. His friends adjured him to take more care of
a life invaluable to his country; and his most illustrious antagonist,
the great Conde, remarked, after the bloody day of Seneff that the
Prince of Orange had in all things borne himself like an old general,
except in exposing himself like a young soldier. William denied that he
was guilty of temerity. It was, he said, from a sense of duty and on a
cool calculation of what the public interest required that he was always
at the post of danger. The troops which he commanded had been little
used to war, and shrank from a close encounter with the veteran soldiery
of France. It was necessary that their leader should show them how
battles were to be won. And in truth more than one day which had seemed
hopelessly lost was retrieved by the hardihood with which he rallied his
broken battalions and cut down with his own hand the cowards who set the
example of flight. Sometimes, however, it seemed that he had a strange
pleasure in venturing his person. It was remarked that his spirits were
never so high and his manners never so gracious and easy as amidst
the