Sterne pities the man who could go from Dan to Beersheba and say that all was barren, and I must pity the man who travels from Bergen op Zoom to Amsterdam and says that Holland, with all its flatness, is not worth visiting.
|
"Oh Willow, Willow, Willow, here Each stands bowing to another, And every Alley finds its brother." |
Nature never abhorred a vacuum more than she herself is abhorred by these Dutchmen; here rivers run above their levels and cattle feed where fishes were by nature intended to swim. Hogarth's line of beauty is unknown in Holland. No line can be either beautiful or palatable except that which[212] (defined mathematically) is the shortest that can be drawn between two given points. But I have yet a great deal to say before I come to these roads. I left you at Bergen op Zoom, just arrived. On Sunday morning, after a little enquiry, we were glad to find there was a Protestant French Church in the town, and thither we went. I cannot say much for the sermon; it was on i Cor. vii. 20, in which a great deal of French display of vehemence and action made up in some degree for a feeble prolixity of words; in one part, however, he made an appeal, which has at least had the effect of eloquence and certainly came home to the heart. He described the miseries the country had so long endured and the happy change which had now taken place. But while he blest the change he lamented the tears which must be shed from the fatal effects of the war which produced it; and then turning to us, whom he perceived to be Englishmen, he proceeded: "It is for us to lament the sad disaster which this town was doomed to witness in the loss of our friends (our Compatriots, I may say), who shed their blood for the restoration of our liberties." After church I went into the vestry to tell him who and what I was. As an Englishman he shook me by the hand, and when he understood I was a Protestant minister he shook it again. Had he asked me to dine I should have accepted his invitation, but unluckily he lost my company by paying what he conceived to be a greater compliment. Like an Indian warrior, he offered the calumet of peace and begged I would go[213] home and smoke with him. Now, I would have gone through a good deal to have had some conversation with him, but really on one of the hottest days of July, when I was anxious, moreover, to inspect the fortification, smoking would not do, and taking our leave he sent his schoolmaster, an intelligent man who had a brother a Captain in one of our assaulting regiments, to be our guide and tell the melancholy tale.... And now let me see if I can make that clear to you which has never been made clear to anybody yet. "At 10 o'clock," said our guide, "I was at supper with a little party, some French officers being present; about half after 10 some musket shots were heard; this was no uncommon sound and we took no notice; however, it rather increased, and the French sent a sergeant to know the cause, and remained chatting quietly. In about ten minutes in burst the sergeant, 'Vite, vite, à vos portes! Les Anglais sont dans la ville.'" I need not add the party broke up in a hurry; our Guide sallied forth with the rest, and went on the Ramparts for curiosity, but whilst he was gratifying this passion, on a pitch dark night, down drops a man who stood near him, and whiz flew some bullets, upon which he took to his heels, got home, and saw no more; indeed, had he been inclined it would have been impossible, for Patrols paraded the streets and shot every one who was not a French soldier. Thus far our schoolmaster was an eye-witness; for the remainder you must trust to my account from as minute an enquiry as I could make upon the spot with Sir T. Graham's[214] dispatches in my hand, which threw very little light upon the subject.
| A. | The Steenbergen Gate. | E. | Picket of veteran French Soldiers. |
| B. | Breda Gate. | F. | River or creek running into the town. |
| C. | Antwerp Gate. | G. | Side from whence the English approach. |
| D. | Water Gate. | H. | Bastion near Breda Gate. |
Under the guidance of some inhabitants who had fled to the English, soon after 10 o'clock, March 8th, the ground covered with snow and ice, our troops marched in silence to their respective posts. The Guards, led by General Cooke, were to go round towards B and C, at A a false attack was to be made; another column was to force open the gates[215" at B, and the 4th column, led by Generals Skerret and Gore, proceeded by the dotted line, crossed the river up to their middle, and skirting round between the works were the first to enter the town behind some houses which fronted the Quay. Hitherto all went on well, and the object of all the Columns was to concentrate at G, but no sooner had the 4th Column gained its point (from what cause nobody knows, for I cannot conceive that the immediate loss of its two Generals was the sole cause) than all subordination seems to have been at an end, and the men, instead of going on, occupied themselves with revelling and drinking and getting warm in the houses by the Quay, and though many prisoners were taken, they were imprudently left unguarded with arms in their hands, which they very soon turned against their captors with fatal success. The doors and windows in this part of the town bore evidence of the business which for a short time was carried on. The Guards gained their point, and so did the Column at B in part, for the French were killed in great numbers on Bastion H, in fact, eleven Bastions were taken, and all before midnight; but from this period till 7 in the morning, when the affair closed, I can give you no clear account. Nobody seemed to know what was doing, all appears to have been confusion—not a gun was spiked, none were turned towards the Town. In the meantime the French were no inactive observers of what was passing; they came forward most manfully, fighting[216] hand to hand, and though I could not find out that there was the slightest reason for suspecting they were at all prepared beyond what was usual, or aware of the attack, they contrived to be instantly at the right point, and though with barely 3,000 men to defend works, the inner circle of which is at least 2 miles in circumference, and with 3,900 men attacking, they remained master of the field, killing near 400 and taking 1,500 prisoners. The French General was an elderly man who left all to his Aide de Camp. He was, in fact, the head, and has been rewarded most deservedly in the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. The French, it is supposed, lost 5 or 600 men. The number was certainly great, and they were aware of it, for they buried their dead directly, to prevent the possibility of counting. The Bergen op Zoom people say it is utterly impossible to account for the failure of the assault but on the supposition that the English were led to conclude that the French would make no resistance or that they were badly officered. I should be sorry to believe the latter, and yet I heard from good authority that many of these, instead of encouraging their men at the Water post gate, were actually busied in collecting braziers and fires to warm themselves and rest upon their arms.
It may be supposed that wading on such a night upwards of 50 yards in mud and water must have been dreadfully cold, but I can scarcely conceive that upon a service so important cold could have any influence; however, never having led an assault[217] under such circumstances I can be no judge. Were I to give my own opinion, it would be this: That the affair was entrusted to certain General officers who were unfortunately killed in the beginning of the action; that no precautions appear to have been provided against such accidents, and no remedy applied to the confusion thereby created—the Columns knew not what to do, each on gaining its point possibly waiting for orders to proceed; that the darkness increased the confusion—in short, that "the right hand knew not what the left hand did," and that the French acted with incomparable bravery and skill. It should be added that most of their troops were conscripts. It is an ugly story altogether, and I shall say no more. A sketch of the works in and near the Antwerp gate will give you some idea of the spot which has proved the grave of so many fine officers and men. At 4 o'clock we quitted the town for Breda—the greatest part of the road inexorably flat and uninteresting; but what is lost in the country is gained in the Towns, villages, and people—they are sui generis. For 3 hours did we toil through a deep sand between parallel lines of willows of the same size, shape, and dimensions; then for 3 hours more did we proceed at a foot pace over a common; this brought us to Breda just in time for the gates, through which we trotted to the usual rattle of drawbridges, chains, &c. By the bright light of the moon at night and earliest dawn of the following morning we rambled through the streets.[218] Breda was one of the last towns which got rid of its French garrison without a siege; it departed one night without beat of drum, and the Cossacks came in to breakfast, leaving the trembling inhabitants to doubt whether in escaping Scylla they were not approaching Charybdis. However, they behaved tolerably well. "Did they pillage?" said I to a Breda lady who travelled with us in the Diligence. "Oh non," she replied; "seulement quelque fois ils prenaient des choses sans payer." Thus a Cossack comes into a Shop, makes signs he wants some Cloth. The Dutchman, delighted with the idea of accommodating a new purchaser, takes down his best pieces. The Cossack looks them over, fixes on one, takes it up, pops it under his arm, and walks off, leaving the astonished vendor gaping behind his counter to meditate on the Profits of this new verbal ceremony.
After the Cossacks came the Prussians, who remained a long time and were little better than the French—they lodged in free quarters, domineered without mercy, and paid for nothing. All the Prussian officers I have seen appeared gentleman-like men, but they are nowhere popular. The English succeeded the Prussians, they were all "charmants"; then came the Dutch who were "comme ça," but then "n'importe" they were their own countrymen. I rather begin to like the Dutch women. The next day in the Diligence we had my present informant, a lively, talkative damsel of Breda, a very pretty girl of the same town who talked nothing but Dutch, and an old Lady who would have been perfect if everything had been as charming as her Dress.
