preliminary visit to the Duke of Parma at Ghent, it was determined
accordingly that he should be accompanied by Cecil.

That young gentleman had already been much impressed by the forlorn
aspect of the country about Ostend--for, although the town was itself in
possession of the English, it was in the midst of the enemy's territory.
Since the fall of Sluys the Spaniards were masters of all Flanders, save
this one much-coveted point. And although the Queen had been disposed to
abandon that city, and to suffer the ocean to overwhelm it, rather than
that she should be at charges to defend it, yet its possession was of
vital consequence to the English-Dutch cause, as time was ultimately to
show. Meanwhile the position was already a very important one, for--
according to the predatory system of warfare of the day--it was an
excellent starting-point for those marauding expeditions against persons
and property, in which neither the Dutch nor English were less skilled
than the Flemings or Spaniards. "The land all about here," said Cecil,
"is so devastated, that where the open country was wont to be covered
with kine and sheep, it is now fuller of wild boars and wolves; whereof
many come so nigh the town that the sentinels--three of whom watch every
night upon a sand-hill outside the gates--have had them in a dark night
upon them ere they were aware."

But the garrison of Ostend was quite as dangerous to the peasants and the
country squires of Flanders, as were the wolves or wild boars; and many a
pacific individual of retired habits, and with a remnant of property
worth a ransom, was doomed to see himself whisked from his seclusion by
Conway's troopers, and made a compulsory guest at the city. Prisoners
were brought in from a distance of sixty miles; and there was one old
gentlemen, "well-languaged," who "confessed merrily to Cecil, that when
the soldiers fetched him out of his own mansion-house, sitting safe in