Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (317 page)

3. HOLLAN
D

3.1
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Early in the afternoon, the lofty tower of the Belvidere, or prospect-house at Nimeguen, came in sight; then the bright pinnacles of the public buildings, and the high, turf-coloured angles of the fortifications. The town was thronged with fugitives from Flanders, but we found sufficient accommodation, as before, at the inn in the marketplace, and were not in a tone of spirits to be fastidious about any thing, heightened as the appearance of prosperity was to us by contrast, and happy as even the refugees appeared to be at finding peace and safety. The mall before the Prince of Orange’s house was filled with parties of them, as gay as if they had left their homes in Flanders but for an holiday excursion.

We were at the Belvidere till evening, lingering over the rich prospect of probably forty miles diameter, from Arnheim and Duisbourg in the north to Cleves and Guelders in the south, with an eastern view over half the forests of Guelderland to those of Westphalia. Such an extent of green landscape, richly varied with towns, villages and woods, spreading and gradually ascending to the horizon, was now almost as novel to us, as it was placidly beautiful. On the east, the blue mountainous lines of Germany broke in upon the reposing character of the scene.

In the Waal below, two or three vessels bore the Emperor’s flag, and were laden, as it was said, with some of his
regalia
from Flanders. Near them, several bilanders, the decks of which were covered with awnings, had attracted spectators to the opposite bank, for to that side only they were open; and the company in all were objects of curiosity to the Dutch, being no less than the sisterhood of several Flemish convents, in their proper dresses, and under the care of their respective abbesses. These ladies had been thus situated, for several days and nights, which they had passed on board their vessels. They were attended by their usual servants, and remained together, without going on shore, being in expectation, as we were told, of invitations to suitable residences in Germany; but it was then reported at Nimeguen, that Prince Cobourg was re-advancing to Brussels, and these societies had probably their misfortunes increased by the artifices of a political rumour. We could not learn, as we wished, that they had brought away many effects. Their plate it was needless to enquire about; the contributions of the preceding spring had no doubt swallowed up that.

Having dismissed our Cologne watermen, we embarked upon the Waal, the next day, in a public boat for Rotterdam; a neat schuyt, well equipped and navigated, in which, for a few florins, you have the use of the cabin. Our voyage, from the want of wind, was slow enough to shew as much as could be seen of the Waal; which, at Nimeguen, runs almost constantly downward, but is soon met by the tide, and overcome, or, at least, resisted by it. The breadth, which varies but little above Bommel, is, to our recollection, not less than that of the Thames, at Fulham; the depth, during the beginning of the same space, is probably considerable, in the stream, for, even upon the shore, our dextrous old steersman found water enough to sweep the rushy bank at almost every tack, with a boat, drawing about five feet. The signs of activity in commerce are astonishing. A small hamlet, one cannot call any place in Holland contemptible, or miserable, a hamlet of a dozen houses has two or three vessels, of twenty tons each; a village has a herring boat for almost every house, and a trading vessel for Rotterdam two or three times a week. Heavy, high rigged vessels, scarcely breasting the stream, and fit only for river voyages, we frequently met; many of them carrying coals for the nearer part of Germany, such as we saw on the banks between Rees and Nimeguen, and, with much pleasure, recognized for symptoms of neighbourhood to England.

The first town from Nimeguen, on the right bank of the Waal, is Thiel, which we had only time to see was enclosed by modern fortifications, and was not inferior in neatness to other Dutch towns, at least not so in one good street, which we were able to traverse. A sand bank before the port has much lessened the trade of the place, which, in the tenth century, was considerable enough to be acknowledged by the Emperor Otto, in the grant of several privileges.

About a league lower, on the opposite side of the Waal, or rather on the small island of Voorn, stood formerly a fort, called Nassau, which the French, in 1672, utterly destroyed. Near its site, at the northern extremity of the island of Bommel, which lies between the Maas and the Waal, a fort, built by Cardinal Andrew of Austria, still subsists, under the name of
Fort St. André.
The founder, who built it upon the model of the citadel of Antwerp, had no other view than to command by it the town of Bommel; but, in the year 1600, Prince Maurice of Nassau reduced the garrison, after a siege of five weeks, and it has since contributed to protect what it was raised to destroy, the independence of the Dutch commonwealth.

In the evening, we came opposite to the town of Bommel, where we were put on shore to pass the night and the next day, being Sunday; the boat proceeded on the voyage for Rotterdam, but could not reach it before the next morning.

Bommel is a small town on the edge of the river, surrounded by wood enough to make it remarkable in Holland; light, neat and pretty. The two principal streets cross each other at right angles, and are without canals. Being at some distance from the general roads, it is ill provided with inns; but one of them has a delightful prospect, and there is no dirt, or other symptom of negligence within. The inhabitants are advanced enough in prosperity and intelligent curiosity to have two
Sociétés,
where they meet to read new publications; a luxury, which may be found in almost every Dutch town. At the ends of the two principal streets are gates; that towards the water between very old walls; those on the land side modern and stronger, with drawbridges over a wide fossé, that nearly surrounds the town.

On the other side of this ditch are high and broad embankments, well planted with trees, and so suitable to be used as public walks, that we supposed them to have been raised partly for that purpose, and partly as defences to the country against water. They are, however, greater curiosities, having been thrown up by Prince Maurice in 1599, chiefly because his garrison of four thousand foot and two thousand horse were too numerous for the old works; and between these intrenchments was made what is thought to have been the first attempt at a covered way, since improved into a regular part of fortifications. This was during the ineffectual siege of three weeks, in which Mendoza lost two thousand men, Maurice having then a constant communication with the opposite bank of the Waal by means of two bridges of boats, one above, the other below the town.

Bommel was otherwise extremely important in the struggle of the Dutch against Philip. It was once planned to have been delivered by treachery, but, that being discovered, the Earl of Mansfeldt, Philip’s commander, raised the siege. It adhered to the assembly at Dort, though the Earl of March, the commander of the first armed force of the Flemings, had committed such violences in the town, that the Prince of Orange found it necessary to send him to prison. In the campaign of 1606, when Prince Maurice adopted defensive operations, this was one of the extreme points of his line, which extended from hence to Schenck.

The natural honesty of mankind is on the side of the defensive party, and it is, therefore, that in reading accounts of sieges one is always on the side of the besieged. The Dutch, except when subject to some extraordinary influence, have been always defensive in their wars; from their first astonishing resistance to Philip, to that against the petty attack, which Charles the Second incited the Bishop of Munster to make, who had the coolness to tell Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, that he had thought over the probabilities of his enterprise, and, if it failed, he should not care, for he could go into Italy and buy a Cardinal’s cap; but that he had first a mind to make some figure in the world. The territory of the United Provinces is so small, that, in these wars, the whole Dutch Nation has been in little better condition, than that of a people, besieged in one great town; and Louis the Fourteenth, in the attempt, which Charles the Second’s wicked sister concerted between the two Monarchs, sent, for the first time, to a whole people, a threat, similar to those sometimes used against a single town. His declaration of the 24th of June, 1672, after boasting how his ‘“just designs”’ and undertakings had prospered, since his arrival in the army, and how he would treat the Dutch, if, by submission, they would ‘“deserve his great goodness,”’ thus proceeds:

‘“On the contrary, all of whatever quality and condition, who shall refuse to comply with these offers, and shall resist his Majesty’s forces, either by the inundation of their dyke, or otherwise, shall be punished with the utmost rigour. At present, all hostilities shall be used against those, who oppose his Majesty’s designs; and, when the ice shall open a passage on all sides, his Majesty will not give any quarter to the inhabitants of such cities, but give order, that their goods be plundered and their houses burnt.”’

It is pleasant, in every country, to cherish the recollections, which make it a spectacle for the mind as well as the eye, and no country is enriched by so many as Holland, not even the West of England, where patriotism and gratitude hover in remembrance over the places, endeared by the steps of our glorious WILLIAM.

Bommel is built on a broad projection of the island of the same name into the Waal, which thus flows nearly on two sides of its walls, and must be effectually commanded by them. But, though it is therefore important in a military view, and that the French were now so near to Breda, as to induce families to fly from thence, whom we saw at Bommel, yet the latter place was in no readiness for defence. There was not a cannon upon the walls, or upon the antient outworks, which we mistook for terraces, and not ten soldiers in the place; a negligence, which was, however, immediately after remedied.

The Dutch tardiness of exertion has been often blamed, and, in such instances, deservedly; but, as to the influence of this sparingness in their general system of politics and in former periods, a great deal more wit than truth has been circulated by politicians. The chief value of power is in the known possession of it. Those who are believed to have exerted it much, will be attacked, because the exertion may be supposed to have exhausted the power. The nation, or the individual, that attempts to rectify every error and punish every trivial offence of others, may soon lose, in worthless contests, the strength, that should be preserved for resisting the most positive and unequivocal attacks.

Ministers have appeared in Holland, who could plan unnecessary contests, and meditate the baseness, falsely called ambition, of putting the whole valour and wealth of a nation into exercise, for the purpose of enforcing whatever they may have once designed, or said; and, as there is, perhaps, no country in Europe, which cannot justly allege some injury against another, they have exaggerated the importance of such injuries, for the purpose of impelling their own country, by aggravated anger, or fear, into precipitate hostilities. But the Dutch, accustoming themselves to as much vigilance, as confidence, have withheld encouragement from such artifices, and hence that general tardiness in beginning wars, which every politician, capable of an inflammatory declamation, thinks it wisdom to ridicule.

We left Bommel at seven in the morning, in a stout, decked seaboat, well rigged, and, as appeared, very dextrously navigated. The wind was directly contrary, and there are sometimes islands, sometimes shoals in the Waal, which narrowed the channel to four or five times the length of the vessel; yet there was not any failure in tacking, and the boom was frequently assisted to traverse by the reeds of the bank, which it swept. The company in the cabin were not very numerous, but there was amongst them at least one lamentable group; the minister of a Protestant church at Maestricht, an aged and decrepid gentleman, flying with his wife and two daughters from the approaching siege of that place; himself laid on pillows upon the floor of the cabin; his daughters attending him; all neglected, all victims to the glories of war.

The boat soon passed Louvenstein, on the left bank of the Maese, a brick castellated building, apparently about two centuries old, surrounded by some modern works, which render it one of the defences of the river. Count Byland, the late commander of Breda, was then imprisoned in this fortress, which has been long used for state purposes. Here those friends of Barneveldt were confined, who derived from it, and left to their posterity the name of the Louvenstein party; and hence Grotius, who was of the number, made his escape, concealed in a trunk, which the sentinels had so often seen filled with Arminian books, that his wife persuaded them they carried nothing more than their usual cargo.

From Louvenstein, near which the Waal unites with the Maese, and assumes the name of that river, we soon reached Gorcum, where the short stay of the boat permitted us only to observe the neatness of the town, and that the fortifications had the appearance of being strong, though small, and seemed to be in most exact repair. This, indeed, is one of the forts chiefly relied upon by the province of Holland; for, in 1787, their States made Gorcum and Naarden the extreme points of their line of defence, and ordered a dyke to be thrown across the Linge, which flows into the Maese at the former place, for the purpose of overflowing the surrounding country.

The next town in the voyage is Dort, formerly one of the most considerable in Holland, and still eminent for its wealth, though the trade is diminished by that of Rotterdam. This is the town, which Dumourier strove to reach, in the invasion of 1792, and forty thousand stand of arms were found to have been collected there for him. Our boat passed before one quarter, in which the houses rise immediately over a broad bay of the Maese, with an air of uncommon gaiety and lightness; but the evenness of the town prevented us from seeing more than the part directly nearest.