6/22 He may have been personally ambitious, but he was a true patriot. He had great military talents. He completely remodelled and wonderfully improved the internal administration of the country, and raised its commerce, manufactures, and agriculture to a pitch which they had never before reached. After his death his memory was esteemed and revered by the Flemings, who long submitted to the laws he had made, and preserved his regulations with scrupulous exactitude. Every means were adopted to raise money and to gather stores, and every man between sixteen and sixty south of the Trent was called upon to take up arms and commanded to assemble at Portsmouth in the middle of Lent. |