Our road was, however, Dutch throughout. Upon a sort of raised dyke, between a monotonous avenue of stunted willows, did we jog gently on, with nothing to relieve the eye but here and there a windmill or a farm. On our left we saw, as far as eye could reach, the Swamp (or I scarcely know what to call it), which fills up the spaces between the Main and South Beveland, and it almost gave me the Walcheren fever to look at it. The Evening Gun of Flushing saluted the Sun as he sank to rest behind these muddy isles, and we begun to fear, as night drew on, that we should have to take up our night's lodging in the Gig, for though he knew that the gates of the Fortress were closed at 9, our sturdy Dutchman moved not a peg the faster. However, we escaped the evil, and 10 minutes before 9 we passed the drawbridge of the ditch leading to the Antwerp gate, which had been the grave of the 1st Column of Guards, led by General Cooke, on the 8th March.... NOTE. _Storming of Bergen op Zoom, March 8, 1814._--Sir Thomas Graham had landed 6,000 men on October 7, 1813, in S. Beveland, in order to combine with the Prussians to drive the French from Holland. On March 8, 1814, he led 4,000 British troops against Bergen op Zoom. They were formed into four columns, of which two were to attack the fortifications at different points; the third to make a false attack; the fourth to attack the entrance of the harbour, which is fordable at low water. The first, led by Major-General Cooke, incurred some delay in passing the ditch on the ice, but at length established itself on the rampart. The right column, under Major-General Skerret and Brigadier-General Gore, had forced their way into the body of the place, but the fall of General Gore and the dangerous wounds of Skerret caused the column to fall into disorder and suffer great loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The centre column was driven back by the heavy fire of the place, but re-formed and marched round to join General Cooke. At daybreak the enemy turned the guns of the place on the unprotected rampart and much loss and confusion ensued. General Cooke, despairing of success, directed the retreat of the Guards, and, finding it impossible to withdraw his weak battalions, he saved the lives of his remaining men by surrender. The Governor of Bergen op Zoom agreed to a suspension of hostilities for an exchange of prisoners. The killed were computed at 300, prisoners, 1,800.--ED. LETTER XIII. HAGUE, _August 4, 1814._ Sterne pities the man who could go from Dan to Beersheba and say that all was barren, and I must pity the man who travels from Bergen op Zoom to Amsterdam and says that Holland, with all its flatness, is not worth visiting. "Oh Willow, Willow, Willow, here Each stands bowing to another, And every Alley finds its brother."