republican camp, and was
hospitably entertained at the stadholder's table. Maurice, with soldierly
bluntness, ridiculed the floating batteries, the castles on wheels, the
sausages, and other newly-invented machines, employed before Ostend, and
characterized them as rather fit to catch birds with than to capture a
city, defended by mighty armies and fleets.

"If the archduke has set his heart upon it, he had far better try to buy
Ostend," he observed.

"What is your price?" asked the Italian; "will you take 200,000 ducats?"

"Certainly not less than a million and a half," was the reply; so highly
did Maurice rate the position and advantages of the city. He would
venture to prophesy, he added, that the siege of Ostend would last as
long as the siege of Troy.

"Ostend is no Troy," said Spinola with a courtly flourish, "although
there are certainly not wanting an Austrian Agamemnon, a Dutch Hector,
and an Italian Achilles." The last allusion was to the speaker's namesake
and kinsman, the Marquis Anibrose Spinola, of whom much was to be heard
in the world from that time forth.

Meantime, although so little progress had been made at Ostend, Maurice
had thoroughly done his work before Grave. On the 18th September the
place surrendered, after sixty days' siege, upon the terms usually
granted by the stadholder. The garrison was to go out with the honours of
war. Those of the inhabitants who wished to leave were to leave; those
who preferred staying were to stay; rendering due allegiance to the
republic, and abstaining in public from the rites of the Roman Church,
without being exposed, however, to any inquiries as to their religious
opinions, or any interference within their households.

The work went slowly on before Ostend. Much effect had been produced,
however, by the operations of the archduke's little naval force. The
galley of that day, although a child's toy as compared with the wonders
of naval architecture of our own time, was an effective machine enough to
harass fishing and coasting vessels in creeks and estuaries, and along
the shores of Holland and Zeeland during tranquil weather.

The locomotive force of these vessels consisted of galley-slaves, in
which respect the Spaniards had an advantage over other nations; for they
had no scruples in putting prisoners of war into chains and upon the
benches of the rowers. Humanity--"the law of Christian piety," in the
words of the noble Grotius--forbade the Hollander