so worthy as yours.
"ELIZABETH R.

"14th August, 1596."

This letter was transmitted by the admiral to the States-General; who,
furnished him with a copy of it, but enrolled the original in their
archives; recording as it did, in the hand of the great English queen,
so striking a testimony to the valour and the good conduct of
Netherlanders.

The results of this expedition were considerable, for the king's navy was
crippled, a great city was destroyed, and some millions of plunder had
been obtained. But the permanent possession of Cadiz, which, in such
case, Essex hoped to exchange for Calais, and the destruction of the
fleet at the Azores--possible achievements both, and unwisely neglected
--would have been far more profitable, at least to England. It was also
matter of deep regret that there was much quarrelling between the
Netherlanders and the Englishmen as to their respective share of the
spoils; the Netherlanders complaining loudly that they had been
defrauded. Moreover the merchants of Middelburg, Amsterdam, and other
commercial cities of Holland and Zeeland were, as it proved, the real
owners of a large portion of the property destroyed or pillaged at Cadiz;
so that a loss estimated as high as three hundred thousand florins fell
upon those unfortunate traders through this triumph of the allies.

The internal consequences of the fall of Calais had threatened at the
first moment to be as disastrous as the international results of that
misfortune had already proved. The hour for the definite dismemberment
and partition of the French kingdom, not by foreign conquerors but among