Amid the havoc produced in every quarter by the conflagration, the freebooters did not neglect to pillage as much as they possibly could, by which means they collected a considerable booty. Morgan seemed ashamed of his atrocious act; he carefully concealed that he had ever executed it, and gave out that the Spaniards themselves had set their city on fire. %STRUGGLE OF THE DUTCH AGAINST FRANCE AND ENGLAND% A.D. 1672 C.M. DAVIES Seldom has any people held out so heroically against overwhelming numbers as did the Dutch in 1672. Of the various wars during the reign of Louis XIV, that which he carried on against Holland was one of the most important. By its settlement, at the Peace of Nimwegen (1678-1679), the long hostilities between France and Holland and their allies were brought to a close, and Holland was once more saved from threatened destruction. Louis, having invaded the Spanish Netherlands, had reluctantly consented to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), by which he retained a small part of the Low Countries. By insisting on this treaty Holland gave deep offence to the French monarch, who in 1672 began a war of revenge against the Netherlands, where his schemes of large acquisition had been thwarted. His first attempt was to isolate Holland, and having purchased the King of Sweden, he bribed Charles II of England, uncle of William of Orange, to enter into a secret treaty against the Netherlands. The principal events of the war are narrated by Davies, who shows how the old spirit of the Dutch returned to them in this supreme hour of new peril to their liberties. The Dutch, though, in defence of their religion and liberties, they had beaten the first soldiers in the world, were never essentially a military nation; and in 1672 a long interval of peace, and devotion to the pursuits of commerce, had rendered them quite unfit for warlike enterprises. The army was entirely disorganized; the officers, appointed by the magistrates of the towns on the score of relationship or party adherence, without the slightest regard to their efficiency, were suffered, without fear of punishment, to keep the numbers of their regiments incomplete, in order that they might appropriate the pay of the vacancies; while the men, independent and undisciplined, were allowed to spend their time in the pursuit of some gainful trade or peaceful occupation, instead of practising military exercises. The disputes concerning the appointment of a captain-general had impeded any fresh levies, the recruits refusing to take the oath to the States except in conjunction with the Prince of Orange, and had induced many of the best and most experienced officers to take service in the French army; the fortifications of the towns were in a dilapidated condition, and no measures had been adopted for the security of the frontier.