oble natures. Of a gentle disposition
originally, but inflamed almost to insanity by a contemplation of Spanish
cruelty, he had taken up the profession of arms, to which he had a
natural repugnance. Brave to recklessness, he led his men on every daring
outbreak, on every perilous midnight adventure. Armed only with his
rapier, without defensive armor, he was ever found where the battle raged
most fiercely, and numerous were the victims who fell before his sword.
On returning, however, from such excursions, he invariably shut himself
in his quarters, took to his bed, and lay for days, sick with remorse,
and bitterly lamenting all that bloodshed in which he had so deeply
participated, and which a cruel fate seemed to render necessary. As the
gentle mood subsided, his frenzy would return, and again he would rush to
the field, to seek new havoc and fresh victims for his rage.

The combats before the walls were of almost daily occurrence. On the 25th
March, one thousand of the besieged made a brilliant sally, drove in all
the outposts of the enemy, burned three hundred tents, and captured seven
cannon, nine standards, and many wagon-loads of provisions, all which
they succeeded in bringing with them into the city.--Having thus
reinforced themselves, in a manner not often practised by the citizens of
a beleaguered town, in the very face of thirty thousand veterans--having
killed eight hundred of the enemy, which was nearly one for every man
engaged, while they lost but four of their own party--the Harlemers, on
their return, erected a trophy of funereal but exulting aspect. A mound
of earth was constructed upon the ramparts, in the form of a colossal
grave, in full view of the enemy's camp, and upon it were planted the
cannon and standards so gallantly won in the skirmish, with the taunting
inscription floating from the centre of the mound "Harlem is the
graveyard of the Spaniards."

Such were the characteristics of this famous siege during the winter and
early spring. Alva might well write to his sovereign, that "it was a war
such as never before was seen or heard of in any land on earth." Yet the
Duke had known near sixty years of warfare. He informed Philip that
"never was a place defended with such skill and bravery as Harlem, either
by rebels or by men fighting for their lawful Prince." Certainly his son
had discovered his mistake in asserting that the city would yield in a
week; while the father, after nearly six years'