Landais had not yet been deposed from the command of the Alliance, because it would have probably required force to arrest him on the deck of his own ship, and an internecine conflict might have been precipitated in his command. On the 3d of October, having made a quick run of it, the squadron entered the Texel. From the mainland of the Dutch Republic, now the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the state of North Holland thrusts a bold wedge of land far to the northward, between the foaming surges of the German Ocean on the one hand, and the tempest-tossed waters of the Zuyder Zee on the other. Opposite the present mighty fortifications of Helder, justly considered the Gibraltar of the North, which terminate the peninsula, lies a deep and splendid channel, bounded on the north side by the island of Texel, from which the famous passage gets its name. Through this ocean gateway, from time immemorial, a splendid procession of gallant ships and hardy men have gone forth to discover new worlds, to found new countries, to open up new avenues of trade with distant empires, and to uphold the honor of the Orange flag in desperate battles on the sea. Through the pass sailed the first great Christian foreign missionary expedition of modern times, when in 1624 the Dutchmen carried the Gospel to the distant island of Formosa, the beautiful. Brederode and the wild beggars of the sea; Tromp, De Ruyter, van Heemskerk, De Winter, leading their fleets to battles which made their names famous, had plowed through the deep channel with their lumbering keels. Of smaller ships from these familiar shores, the little Half Moon, of Henry Hudson, and the pilgrim-laden Mayflower had taken their departure. But no bolder officer nor better seaman had ever made the passage than the little man on the deck of the battered Serapis on that raw October morning. It is a rather interesting coincidence that among the prizes of this cruise was one which bore the name of the Mayflower. As the cables of the ships tore through the hawse pipes when they dropped anchor, Jones may have imagined that his troubles were over. As a matter of fact, they had just begun, and his stay in the Texel was not the least arduous nor the least brilliant period in his life. His conduct in the trying circumstances in which he found himself was beyond reproach. The instant that he appeared, Sir Joseph Yorke, the able and influential Minister of England at The Hague, demanded that the States-General deliver the Serapis and the Scarborough to him and compel the return of the English prisoners held by Jones, and that the American "Pirate" should be ordered to leave the Texel immediately, which would, of course, result in the certain capture of his ships, for the English pursuing squadron appeared off the mouth of the channel almost immediately after Jones' entrance.