nsophisticated Dutch skippers was done
very thoroughly, without flinching, and, as usual, at great odds of men
and guns. Two more of the Spanish galleys were chased into the shallows
near Gravelines, where they went to pieces. Another was wrecked near
Calais. The galley which bore Frederic Spinola himself and his fortunes
succeeded in reaching Dunkirk, whence he made his way discomfited, to
tell the tale of his disaster to the archduke at Brussels. During the
fight the Dutch admiral's boats had been active in picking up such of the
drowning crews, whether galley-slaves or soldiers, as it was possible to
save. But not more than two hundred were thus rescued, while by far the
greater proportion of those on board, probably three thousand in number,
perished, and the whole fleet, by which so much injury was to have been
inflicted on Dutch commerce, was, save one damaged galley, destroyed. Yet
scarcely any lives were lost by the Hollanders, and it is certain that
the whole force in their fleet did not equal the crew of a single one of
the enemy's ships. Neither Spinola nor the archduke seemed likely to make
much out of the contract. Meantime, the Genoese volunteer kept quiet in
Sluy's, brooding over schemes to repair his losses and to renew his
forays on the indomitable Zeelanders.

Another winter had now closed in upon Ostend, while still the siege had
scarcely advanced an inch. During the ten months of Governor Dorp's
administration, four thousand men had died of wounds or malady within the
town, and certainly twice as many in the trenches of the besieging force.
Still the patient Bucquoy went on, day after day, night after night,
month after month, planting his faggots and fascines, creeping forward
almost imperceptibly with his dyke, paying five florins each to the
soldiers who volunteered to bring the materials, and a double ducat to
each man employed in laying them. So close were they under the fire of
the town; that a life was almost laid down for every ducat, but the
Gullet, which it was hoped to close, yawned as wide as ever, and the
problem how to reduce a city, open by sea to the whole world, remained
without solution. On the last day of the year a splendid fleet of
transports arrived in the town, laden with whole droves of beeves and
flocks of sheep, besides wine and bread and beer enough to supply a
considerable city; so that market provisions in the beleaguered town were
cheaper than in any part of Europe.

Th