CHAPTER XVII
LANDING OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE
The landing was completed in three hours, without a hitch and was followed by divine service on the beach, concluded by all the troops singing the 118th Psalm, which is at once a psalm of thanksgiving for mercies received, and a bidding for others. Reading it, you conceive the Psalmist as timorously thankful, buoyed up by faith to a certain degree, and yet horribly frightened; and thus, there can be no doubt, it was highly appropriate to the situation in which all at that moment found themselves. We may, perhaps, suspect that the eighth verse, which deprecates confidence being put in princes, was omitted for this occasion.
An absurd story tells us that the inhabitants of Brixham (or “Broxholme,” as the Dutch called it), presented an address to the prince, in this form:
“And please your majesty, King William,
You’re welcome to Brixham Quay,
To eat buckhorn, and drink bohea
Along with we
And please your majesty, King William.”
The individually quite sufficient objections to this are that the prince was not yet acknowledged king, and that tea was then unknown at Brixham; and in any case, it would have been an expensive luxury far beyond the reach of fisherfolk. What “buckhorn” may have been is a mystery not revealed to the present generation.