After waiting in vain during some time, they were obliged to sail towards Zealand, where it had also been neglected to concert proper measures for their disembarkation; and some scruples arose among the states on account of the scarcity of provisions.

Meanwhile a pestilential distemper crept in among the English forces, so long cooped up in narrow vessels.

Half the army died while on board; and the other half, weakened by sickness, appeared too small a body to march into the Palatinate.[*] {1625.} And thus ended this ill-concerted and fruitless expedition; the only disaster which happened to England during the prosperous and pacific reign of James.
That reign was now drawing towards a conclusion.

With peace, so successfully cultivated, and so passionately loved by this monarch, his life also terminated.

This spring, he was seized with a tertian ague; and, when encouraged by his courtiers with the common proverb, that such a distemper, during that season, was health for a king, he replied, that the proverb was meant of a young king.