flying bridge began to swing round; and, to save it from running foul of the kindled boats, the sailors dropped the anchor and so brought it up. When the burning pontoons had floated away, some British seamen, who were employed on the bridge, were for cutting it adrift, but the Dutchmen would not allow them to do so, preferring certain capture to the risk of a few cannon-shot. Thus eleven hundred of them were taken, either through their own cowardice or through that of Haak—a lamentable occurrence in an army which in the past had approved itself to be of incomparable steadfastness and valour.[1]
The Duke, therefore, now held the line of the Waal including the Bommeler Waert, and might well hope to hold it, if the Dutch did their duty, until the army went into winter quarters. He had already put most of his cavalry into cantonments across the Yssel, but the Dutch threw every possible obstacle in the way of providing for the comfort of the troops. The weather too grew wintry, and the men, miserably clothed and housed in open barns, began to fall down very fast from cold and typhus fever. None of them had greatcoats except some of the Guards, Fourteenth, Thirty-seventh, and Fifty-third, who had received those which had been provided by public subscription in 1793, and which were now worn out. Flannel waistcoats had been supplied to the rest by their officers, who had subscribed over a thousand pounds for the purpose; and it appears that, without exaggeration, they had little other clothing. Sheer nakedness, in fact, had been the cause of much, though not of all, of the plundering that had disgraced the army; and this evil had been aggravated by the
- ↑ York to Dundas, 7th and 11th November; Craig to Nepean, 10th November 1794.
