encampments, winter parties, counter-marching, dodging and
entrenching, were the exercises of his men, and oftentimes killed
him more men with hunger, cold and diseases, than he could do with
fighting. Not that it required less courage, but rather more, for
a soldier had at any time rather die in the field _a la coup de
mousquet_, than be starved with hunger, or frozen to death in the
trenches.

Nor do I think I lessen the reputation of that great general; for 'tis
most certain he ruined the Spaniard more by spinning the war thus out
in length, than he could possibly have done by a swift conquest.
For had he, Gustavus-like, with a torrent of victory dislodged the
Spaniard of all the twelve provinces in five years, whereas he was
forty years a-beating them out of seven, he had left them rich and
strong at home, and able to keep them in constant apprehensions of a
return of his power. Whereas, by the long continuance of the war, he
so broke the very heart of the Spanish monarchy, so absolutely and
irrecoverably impoverished them, that they have ever since languished
of the disease, till they are fallen from the most powerful, to be the
most despicable nation in the world.

The prodigious charge the King of Spain was at in losing the seven
provinces, broke the very spirit of the nation; and that so much,
that all the wealth of their Peruvian mountains have not been able to
retrieve it; King Philip having often declared that war, besides his
Armada for invading England, had cost him 370,000,000 of ducats, and
4,000,000 of the best soldiers in Europe; whereof, by an unreasonable
Spanish obstinacy, above 60,000 lost their lives before Ostend, a town
not worth a sixth part either of the blood or money it cost in a siege
of three years; and which at last he had never taken, but that Prince
Maurice thought it not worth the charge of defending it any longer.

However, I say, their way of fighting in Holland did not relish with
me at all. The prince lay a long time before a little fort called
Schenkenschanz, which the Spaniard took by surprise, and I thought he
might have taken it much sooner. Perhaps it might be my mistake, but
I fancied my hero, the King of Sweden, would have carried it sword in
hand, in half the time.

However it was, I did not like it; so in the latter end of the year I
came to the Hague, and took shipping for England, where I arrived, to
the great satisfaction of my father and all my friends.

My father