e
sea?

The town of Sluy's and its situation have been described in a former
chapter. As a port, it was in those days considered a commodious and
important one, capable of holding five hundred ships. As a town, it was
not so insignificant as geographical and historical changes have since
made it, and was certainly far superior to Ostend, even if Ostend had not
been almost battered out of existence. It had spacious streets and
squares, and excellent fortifications in perfectly good condition. It was
situate in a watery labyrinth, many slender streams from the interior and
several saltwater creeks being complicated around it, and then flowing
leisurely, in one deep sluggish channel, to the sea. The wrath of
Leicester, when all his efforts to relieve the place had been baffled by
the superior skill of Alexander Farnese, has been depicted, and during
the seventeen years which had elapsed since its capture, the republic had
not ceased to deplore that disaster. Obviously if the present expedition
could end in the restoration of Sluy's to its rightful owners, it would
be a remarkable success, even if Ostend should fall. Sluy's and its
adjacent domains formed a natural portion of the Zeeland archipelago, the
geographical counterpart of Flushing. With both branches of the stately
Scheld in its control, the republic would command the coast, and might
even dispense with Ostend, which, in the judgment of Maurice, was an
isolated and therefore not a desirable military possession. The
States-General were of a different opinion. They much desired to obtain
Sluy's, but they would not listen to the abandonment of Ostend. It was
expected of the stadholder, therefore, that he should seize the one and
protect the other. The task was a difficult one. A less mathematical
brain than that of Maurice of Nassau would have reeled at the problem to
be solved. To master such a plexus of canals, estuaries, and dykes, of
passages through swamps, of fords at low water which were obliterated by
flood-tide; to take possession of a series of redoubts built on the only
firm points of land, with nothing but quaking morass over which to
manoeuvre troops or plant batteries against them, would be a difficult
study, even upon paper. To accomplish it in the presence of a vigilant
and anxious foe seemed bewildering enough.

At first it was the intention of the stadholder, disappointed at learning
the occupation of the Swint, to content himself with fortifying C