dua, and four thousand prisoners; recover Chiozza, and all the places taken from them; and, following their victory, enter the port of Genoa, enforcing the Genoese basely to beg peace, to their extreme dishonour and disadvantage, being beaten; which, being victorious, they might have commanded, to their greatest honour and advantage. The like happened to the earl of Flanders, in the year 1380, when having taken a notable, and withal an over-cruel revenge, upon the Ghentois, he refused mercy to the rest, who, in all humility, submitting themselves to his obedience, offered their city, goods, and estates, to be disposed at his pleasure. This, when he had unadvisedly refused, and was resolved to extinguish them utterly, they issue out of their city with five thousand chosen men, and armed with a desperate resolution, they charge the earl, break his army, enter Bruges (pell-mell) with his vanquished followers, and enforce him to hide himself under an heap of straw in a poor cottage, out of which, with great dif ficulty, he escaped, and saved himself. Such are the fruits of insolency.

SECT. IX.

How the affairs of Carthage prospered after the victo ry against Attilius. How the Romans, having lost their fleet by tempest, resolve to forsake the seas. The great advantages of a good fleet, in war, between nations divided by the sea.

By the reputation of this late victory, all places that had been lost in Africa return to the obedience of Carthage. Only Clypea stands out, before which the Carthaginians sit down and assail it, but in vain ; for the Romans, hearing of the loss of Attilius with their forces in Africa, and withal that Clypea was besieged, make ready a gross army, and transport it

in a fleet of three hundred and fifty gallies, commanded by M. Æmilius and Ser. Fulvius their consuls. At the promontory of Mercury, two hundred Carthaginian gallies, set out of purpose upon the bruit of their coming, encounter them, but greatly to their cost; for the Romans took by force an hundred and fourteen of their fleet, and drew them after them to Clypea, where they staid no longer than to take in their own men that had been besieged; and this done, they made amain towards Sicily, in hope to recover all that the Carthaginians held therein. In this hasty voyage they despise the advice of the pilots, who pray them to find harbour in time, for that the season threatened some violent storms, which ever happened between the rising of Orion and of the Dog-star'. Now, although the pilots of the Roman fleet had thus forewarned them of the weather at hand, and certified them withal, that the south coast of Sicily had no good ports wherein to save themselves upon such an accident; yet this victorious nation was persuaded that the wind and seas feared them no less than did the Africans, and that they were able to conquer the elements themselves. So, refusing to stay within some port, as they were advised, they would needs put out to sea; thinking it a matter much helping their reputation, after this victory against the Carthaginian fleet, to take a few worthless towns upon the coast. The merciless winds in the meanwhile overtake them, and, near untó Camerina, overturn and thrust head

1 There is no part of the world which hath not some certain times of outrageaus weather, besides their accidental storms We have upon our coast a Michaelmas flaw that seldom or never fails. In the West Indies, in the months of August and September, those most forcib! winds, which the Spaniards call the Nortes, or north winds, are very fearful; and therefore they that navigate in those parts take harbour till these months take end. Charles the Fifth bei g as ill advised in passing the seas towards Algiers in the winter quarter, contrary to the counsel of A. Doria, as he was in like unseasonable times to continue his siege before Metz, in Lorrain, lost one hundred and forty ships by tempest, and fifteen gallies, with all in effect in them of men, victuals, horses, and munition. A loss no less great, than his retreat both from before the one and the other was extreme dishonourable.

long on the rocks all but eighty, of three hundred and forty ships; so as their former great victory was devoured by the seas before the fame thereof recovered Rome.

The Carthaginians hearing what had happened, repair all their warlike vessels, hoping once again to command the seas; they are also as confident of their land forces since the overthrow of Attilius. They send Asdrubal into Sicily with all their old soldiers, and an hundred and forty elephants, embarked in two hundred gallies. With this army and fleet he arrives at Lilybæum, where he begins to vex the partizans of Rome. But adversity doth not discourage the Romans: they build in three months (a matter of great note) one hundred and twenty ships; with which, and the remainder of their late shipwreck, they row to Panormus, or Palermo, the chief city of the Africans in Sicily, and surround it by land and water. After a while they take it, and leav ing a garrison therein, return to Rome.

Very desirous the Romans were to be doing in Africa. To which purpose they employed C. Servilius and C. Sempronius their consuls. But these wrought no wonders. Some spoil they made upon the coasts of Africa, but fortune robbed them of all their gettings: for, in their return, they were first set upon the sands, and like to have perished near unto the lesser Syrtes, where they were fain to heave all overboard, that so they might get off. Then having, with much ado, doubled the cape of Lilybæum, in their passage from Panormus towards Italy, they lost an hundred and fifty of their ships by foul weather. A greater discouragement never nation had; the god of the wars favoured them no more than the god of the waters afHicted them. Of all that Mars enriched them with upon the land, Neptune robbed them upon the seas; for they had now lost, besides what they lost in fight, four hun

dred and six ships and gallies, with all the munition and soldiers transported in them.

The exceeding damage hereby received persuaded them to give over their navigation and their fight by sea, and to send only a land army into Sicily, under L. Cæcilius and F. Furius their consuls. These they transported in some sixty ordinary passageboats by the straits of Messina, that are not above a mile and a half broad from land to land. In like sort, the overthrow which Attilius received in Africa, occasioned chiefly by the elephants, made them less choleric against the Carthaginians than before; so that for two years after, they kept the high and woody grounds, not daring to fight in the fair and campaign countries. But this late resolution of forsaking the seas lasted not long; for it was impossible for them to succour those places which they held in Sicily without a navy, much less to maintain the war in Africa. For whereas the Romans were to send forces from Messina to Egesta, to Lilyboum, and to other places in the extreme west parts of Sicily, making sometimes a march of above one hundred and forty English miles by land, which could not be performed with an army, and the provisions that follow it, in less than fourteen days, the Carthaginians would pass it with their gallies in forty-eight hours.

An old example we have of that great advantage of transporting armies by water, between Canutus and Edmund Ironside. For Canutus, when he had entered the Thames with his navy and army, and could not prevail against London, suddenly embarked; and, sailing to the west, landed in Dorsetshire, so drawing Edmund and his army thither, There finding ill entertainment, he again shipped his men, and entered the Severn, making Edmund to march after him to the succour of Worcestershire, by him greatly spoiled. But when he had Edmund there, he sailed back again to London; by means whereof he both wearied the king, and spoiled where he

pleased, ere succour could arrive. And this was not the least help which the Netherlands have had against the Spaniards in the defence of their liberty, that, being masters of the sea, they could pass their army from place to place, unwearied and entire, with all the munition and artillery belonging unto it, in the tenth part of the time wherein their enemies have been able to do it. Of this an instance or two. The count Maurice of Nassau, now living, one of the greatest captains and of the worthiest princes that either the present or preceding ages have brought forth, in the year 1590, carried his army by sea, with forty cannons, to Breda, making countenance either to besiege Bois-le-duc or Gertrudenberg; which the enemy (in prevention) filled with soldiers and victuals. But, as soon as the wind served, he suddenly set sail, and arriving in the mouth of the Meuse, turned up the Rhine, and thence to Yssel, and sat down before Zutphen. So, before the Spaniards could march over-land round about Holland, above eighty miles, and over many great rivers, with their cannon and carriage, Zutphen was taken. Again, when the Spanish army had overcome this wearisome march, and were now far from home, the prince Maurice, making countenance to sail up the Rhine, changed his course in the night, and sailing down the stream, he was set down before Hulst in Brabant, ere the Spaniards had knowledge what was become of him. So this town he also took, before the Spanish army could return. Lastly, the Spanish army was no sooner arrived in Brabant, than the prince Maurice, well attended by his good fleet, having fortified Hulst, set sail again, and presented himself before Nimeguen in Guelders, a city of notable importance, and mastered it.

And to say the truth, it is impossible for any maritime country, not having the coasts admirably fortified, to defend itself against a powerful enemy that is master of the sea. Hereof I had rather that Spain,