Should even the ground fail them on which they might combat, they were still resolved not to yield the generous strife; but, flying to their settlements in the Indies, erect a new empire in those remote regions, and preserve alive, even in the climates of slavery, that liberty of which Europe was become unworthy.

Already they concerted measures for executing this extraordinary resolution; and found that the vessels contained in their harbors could transport above two hundred thousand inhabitants to the East Indies.
The combined princes, finding at last some appearance of opposition, bent all their efforts to seduce the prince of Orange, on whose valor and conduct the fate of the commonwealth entirely depended.
The sovereignty of the province of Holland was offered him, and the protection of England and France, to insure him, as well against the invasion of foreign enemies, as the insurrection of his subjects.
All proposals were generously rejected; and the prince declared his resolution to retire into Germany, and to pass his life in hunting on his lands there, rather than abandon the liberty of his country, or betray the trust reposed in him.

When Buckingham urged the inevitable destruction which hung over the United Provinces, and asked him whether he did not see that the commonwealth was ruined, "There is one certain means," replied the prince, "by which I can be sure never to see my country's ruin: I will die in the last ditch." The people in Holland had been much incited to espouse the prince's party, by the hopes that the king of England pleased with his nephew's elevation, would abandon those dangerous engagements into which he had entered, and would afford his protection to the distressed republic.
But all these hopes were soon found to be fallacious.

Charles still persisted in his alliance with France; and the combined fleets approached the coast of Holland with an English army on board, commanded by Count Schomberg.

It is pretended that an unusual tide carried them off the coast; and that Providence thus interposed, in an extraordinary manner, to save the republic from the imminent danger to which it was exposed.