The subsequent success in the Flemish campaign by no means corresponded to its brilliant commencement. The jealousy of the Dutch ruined every thing. This gave rise to recriminations and jealousies, which rendered it impracticable even for the great abilities and consummate address of Marlborough to effect any thing of importance with the heterogeneous array, with the nominal command of which he was invested. The English general dispatched his adjutant-general, Baron Hompesch, to represent to the States-general the impossibility of going on longer with such a divided responsibility; but, though they listened to his representations, nothing could induce them to put their troops under the direct orders of the commander-in-chief. They still had "field deputies," as they were called who were invested with the entire direction of the Dutch troops; and as they were civilians, wholly unacquainted with military affairs, they had recourse on every occasion to the very fractious generals who already had done so much mischief to the common cause. In vain Marlborough repeatedly endeavoured, as he himself said, "to cheat them into victory," by getting their consent to measures, of which they did not see the bearing, calculated to achieve that object; their timid, jealous spirit interposed on every occasion to mar important operations, and the corps they commanded was too considerable to admit of their being undertaken without their co-operation. After nine days' watching the enemy across the Dyle, Marlborough proposed to cross the river near Louvain, and attack the enemy; the Dutch Deputies interposed their negative, to Marlborough's infinite mortification, as, in his own words, "it spoiled the whole campaign."[6]