sufficient aid from these troops, and had liberated their whole country.
I don't comprehend these grievances. They complain that I withdraw my
people, and meantime they are still holding them and have brought them
ashore again. They send me frivolous excuses that the skippers don't
know the road to my islands, which is, after all, as easy to find as the
way to Caen, for it is all one. I have also sent my own pilots; and I
complain bitterly that by making this difficulty they will cause the loss
of all Brittany. They run with their people far away from me, and
meantime they allow the enemy to become master of all the coasts lying
opposite me. But if it goes badly with me they will rue it deeply
themselves."

There was considerable reason, even if there were but little justice,
in this strain of remarks. Her Majesty continued it for some little time
longer, and it is interesting to see the direct and personal manner in
which this great princess handled the weightiest affairs of state. The
transfer of a dozen companies of English infantry from Friesland to
Brittany was supposed to be big with the fate of France, England, and the
Dutch republic, and was the subject of long and angry controversy, not as
a contested point of principle, in regard to which numbers, of course,
are nothing, but as a matter of practical and pressing importance.

"Her Majesty made many more observations of this nature," said Caron,
"but without getting at all into a passion, and, in my opinion, her
discourse was sensible, and she spoke with more moderation than she is
wont at other times."

The envoy then presented the second letter from the States-General in
regard to the outrages inflicted on the Dutch merchantmen. The queen
read it at once, and expressed herself as very much displeased with her