[Footnote *: Robinson, _Bruges, an Historical Sketch_, p. 107.]
In June, 1340, Edward, who was then in England, hearing that an
immense number of French ships of war were at anchor in the Zwijn,
set sail to give them battle with a squadron of 300 vessels. The
English fleet anchored off the coast between Blankenberghe and
Heyst on the evening of June 23, and from the top of the dunes the
English scouts saw in the distance the masts of the French ships
in the Zwijn.
As soon as there was light next morning, the English weighed anchor
and sailed along the coast to the east; past lonely yellow sands,
which have swarmed during recent years with workmen toiling at the
construction of the immense harbour of See-Brugge, which is to
be the future port of Bruges; past what was then the small fishing
hamlet of Heyst; past a range of barren dunes, amongst which to-day
Duinbergen, the latest of the Flemish watering-places, with its
spacious hotel and trim villas, is being laid out; past a waste of
storm-swept sand and rushes, on which are now the digue of Knocke,
a cluster of hotels and crowded lodging-houses, and a golf-course;
and so onwards till they opened the mouth of the Zwijn, and saw
the French ships crowding the entrance, 'their masts appearing to
be like a great wood,' and beyond them the walls of Sluis rising
from the wet sands left by the receding tide.
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