The Surgeon's Apprentice - John Biggins

in the Dutch provinces there is no such constraint from the
law, and a libeller is at hazard only of receiving the libellee’s
rapier through his guts if a gentleman or being soundly
cudgelled by his servants and tossed into a canal if of lower
degree. Each year our printing presses disgorge hundreds of
“spotprenten”, which are droll commentaries in verse on
our affairs and those of our neighbours and often very
nicely illustrated by our nest engravers. But I never saw
one of these that would debate whether Such-and-such was
able to perform the marital devoir or not, and soon realised
that where satires are concerned the English are unique
among the nations in combining their dissidence with
ribaldry. ey are a folk that will tolerate any brutality or
incompetence whatever in their rulers, provided only that
they look like rulers; and conversely nd nothing more
contemptible in them than the appearance of lacking
vigour. Yet from what we witnessed of the later conduct of
that expedition, we were forced to admit that there might
be something in the captain’s song withal, and that
fumbling incapacity in the service of Venus might indeed
make King Charles’s generals less than apt as votaries of
Mars. For, as the English say, to ght and to fornicate are
close cousins.
We were all up at three o’clock next morning as the
tide turned, making ready to go up into the bay and resume
our bombardment of Fort Puntal. To replace the Fortuijn,
now so grievously battered as to be unserviceable and her
crew taken off her, we were joined by the Zeeland ship the
Zeeridder of Captain Johan Evertsen, who later won great
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