But a less honourable warfare was waged by the navy. A flotilla of gun-boats and small vessels, inadequate to any splendid of useful conquests, coasted the shores of the Zuider Zee, destroying fishing smacks, and firing on the miserable villages that did not display the Orange flag. Where, through fear, they were received as friends, their business was to dismiss the petty municipalities, cut down the trees of liberty, and distribute Orange cockades to all who chose to accept of them. On their departure, the former order of things were invariably re-established, and thus frequently in the course of a few hours a village was revolutionised, and counter-revolutionised, with the most perfect indifference on the part of its inhabitants.
Had the expedition against Holland been attempted at an earlier period of the year, or had the army advanced after its first successes, before the French and Dutch had time to concentrate their forces, it is highly probable that possession might have been gained of Amsterdam, and a great part of the republic reduced to obedience to the stadtholder. But
