tant on the right, and within a mile of the city, it seemed so insuperable an impediment that Boisot wrote in despondent tone to the Prince of Orange. He announced his intention of carrying the fort, if it were possible, on the following morning, but if obliged to retreat, he observed, with something like despair, that there would be nothing for it but to wait for another gale of wind. If the waters should rise to with firmness, to frustrate the enterprise sufficiently to enable them to make a wide detour, it might be possible, if, in the meantime, Leyden did not starve or surrender, to enter its gates from the opposite side.

Suddenly a man was descried, wading breast-high through the water from Lammen towards the fleet, while at the same time, one solitary boy was seen to wave 5 his cap from the summit of the fort. After a moment of doubt, the happy mystery was solved. The Spaniards had fled, panic struck, during the darkness. Their position would still have enabled them,

of the patriots, but the hand of God, which had sent the ocean and the tempest to the deliverance of Leyden, had struck her enemies with terror likewise. The lights 15 which had been seen moving during the night were the lanterns of the retreating Spaniards, and the boy who was now waving his triumphant signal from the battlements had alone witnessed the spectacle. So confident was he in the conclusion to which it led him, that he had volunteered at daybreak to go thither all alone. The magistrates, fearing a trap, hesitated for a moment to believe the truth, which soon, however, became quite evident. Valdez, flying himself from Leyderdorp, had ordered Colonel Borgia to retire with all his troops from Lammen. Thus, the Spaniards had retreated at the very moment that an extraordinary accident had laid bare a whole side of the city for their entrance. The noise of the wall, as it fell, only inspired them with fresh alarm; for they believed that the citizens had sallied forth in the darkness, to aid the advancing flood in the work of destruction. All obstacles being now removed, the fleet of Boisot swept by Lammen, and entered the city on the morning of the 3d of October. Leyden was relieved.

Meantime, the citizens had grown wild with expectation. A dove had been despatched by Boisot, informing them of his precise position, and a number of citizens accompanied the burgomaster, at night- 20 fall, toward the tower of Hengist 'Yonder,' cried the magistrate, stretching out his hand towards Lammen, 'yonder, behind that fort, are bread and meat, and brethren in thousands. Shall all this be 25 destroyed by the Spanish guns, or shall we rush to the rescue of our friends?' 'We will tear the fortress to fragments with our teeth and nails,' was the reply, 'before the relief, so long expected, shall be 30 wrested from us.' It was resolved that a sortie, in conjunction with the operations of Boisot, should be made against Lammen with the earliest dawn. Night descended upon the scene, a pitch dark night, 35 full of anxiety to the Spaniards, to the armada, to Leyden. Strange sights and sounds occurred at different moments to bewilder the anxious sentinels. A long procession of lights issuing from the fort 40 was seen to flit across the black face of the waters, in the dead of night, and the whole of the city wall, between the Cowgate and the Tower of Burgundy, fell with a loud crash. The horror-struck citizens 45 thought that the Spaniards were upon them at last; the Spaniards imagined the noise to indicate a desperate sortie of the citizens. Everything was vague and mysterious.

The quays were lined with the famishing population, as the fleet rowed through the canals, every human being who could stand, coming forth to greet the preservers of the city. Bread was thrown from every vessel among the crowd. The poor creatures, who for two months had tasted no wholesome human food, and 50 who had literally been living within the jaws of death, snatched eagerly the blessed gift, at last too liberally bestowed. Many choked themselves to death, in the greediness with which they devoured their bread; others became ill with the effects of plenty thus suddenly succeeding starvation; but these were isolated cases, a repetition of which was prevented. The

Day dawned, at length, after the feverish night, and the Admiral prepared for the assault. Within the fortress reigned a death-like stillness, which inspired a sickening suspicion. Had the city, indeed, 55 been carried in the night; had the massacre already commenced; had all this labor and audacity been expended in vain?

Admiral, stepping ashore, was welcomed
by the magistracy, and a solemn proces-
sion was immediately formed. Magis-
trates and citizens, wild Zealanders,
emaciated burgher guards, sailors, sol-
diers, women, children,- nearly every liv-
ing person within the walls, all repaired
without delay to the great church, stout
Admiral Boisot leading the way. The
starving and heroic city, which had been 10
so firm in its resistance to an earthly
king, now bent itself in humble gratitude
before the King of kings. After pray-
ers, the whole vast congregation joined
in the thanksgiving hymn. Thousands of 15
voices raised the song, but few were able
to carry it to its conclusion, for the uni-
versal emotion, deepened by the music,
became too full for utterance. The hymn
was abruptly suspended, while the multi- 20
tude wept like children. This scene of
honest pathos terminated, the necessary
measures for distributing the food and
for relieving the sick were taken by the
magistracy. A note despatched to the 25
Prince of Orange, was received by him
at two o'clock, as he sat in church at
Delft. It was of a somewhat different
purport from that of the letter which he
had received early in the same day from 30
Boisot; the letter in which the Admiral
had informed him that the success of
the enterprise depended, after all, upon
the desperate assault upon a nearly im-
pregnable fort. The joy of the Prince 35
may be easily imagined, and so soon as
the sermon was concluded, he handed the
letter just received to the minister, to be
read to the congregation.
Thus, all par-
ticipated in his joy, and united with him 40
in thanksgiving.

From The Rise of the Dutch Republic,
part iv, chapter 2, 1856.

THE FIRE SHIPS OF ANTWERP1

famine-price had by no means been reached. But the leading men had then their heads full of a great ship, or floating castle, which they were building, and 5 which they had pompously named the War's End, Fin de la Guerre. We shall hear something of this phenomenon at a later period. Meanwhile, Gianibelli, who knew something of shipbuilding, as he did of most other useful matters, ridiculed the design, which was likely to cost, in itself before completion, as much money as would keep the city in bread for a third of a year.

Gianibelli was no patriot. He was purely a man of science and of great acquirements, who was looked upon by the ignorant populace alternately as a dreamer and a wizard. He was as indifferent to the cause of freedom as of despotism, but he had a great love for chemistry. He was also a profound mechanician, second to no man of his age in theoretic and practical engineering.

He had gone from Italy to Spain that he might offer his services to Philip, and give him the benefit of many original and ingenious inventions. Forced to dance attendance, day after day, among sneering courtiers and insolent placemen, and to submit to the criticism of practical sages and philosophers of routine, while he was constantly denied an opportunity of explaining his projects, the quick-tempered Italian had gone away at last, indignant. He had then vowed revenge upon the dullness by which his genius had been slighted, and had sworn that the next time the Spaniards heard the name of the man whom they had dared to deride, they should hear it with tears.

He now laid before the senate of Antwerp a plan for some vessels likely to prove more effective than the gigantic 45 War's End, which he had prophesied would prove a failure. With these he pledged himself to destroy the bridge. He demanded three ships which he had selected from the city fleet- the Orange, the Post, and the Golden Lion,- measur ing, respectively, one hundred and fifty, three hundred and fifty, and five hundred tons. Besides these, he wished sixty flatbottomed scows, which he proposed to send down the river, partially submerged, disposed in the shape of a half moon, with innumerable anchors and grapnells thrusting themselves out of the water at every

There lived in Antwerp a subtle Mantuan, Gianibelli by name, who had married and been long settled in the city. He had 50 made himself busy with various schemes for victualling the place. He had especially urged upon the authorities, at an early period of the siege, the propriety of making large purchases of corn and stor- 55 ing it in magazines at a time when the

1 By permission of Harper Brothers. Copyright, 1860.

point. This machine was intended to operate against the raft.

Ignorance and incredulity did their work, as usual, and Gianibelli's request was refused. As a quarter-measure, nevertheless, he was allowed to take two smaller vessels of seventy and eighty tons. The Italian was disgusted with this parsimony upon so momentous an occasion, but he at the same time determined, even 10 with these slender materials, to give an exhibition of his power.

Not all his the glory, however, of the ingenious project. Associated with him. were two skilful artizans of Antwerp; 15 a clockmaker named Bory, and a mechanician named Timmerman; but Gianibelli was the chief and superintendent of the whole daring enterprise.

He gave to his two ships the cheerful 20 names of the Fortune and the Hope, and set himself energetically to justify their titles by their efficiency. They were to be floating marine volcanos, which, drifting down the river with the ebb tide, 25 were to deal destruction where the Spaniards deemed themselves most secure.

In the hold of each vessel, along the whole length, was laid down a solid flooring of brick and mortar, one foot thick, 30 and five feet wide. Upon this was built a chamber of marble mason-work, forty feet long, three and a half broad, as many high, and with side-walls five feet in thickness. This was the crater. It was 35 filled with seven thousand pounds of gunpowder, of a kind superior to anything known, and prepared by Gianibelli himself. It was covered with a roof, six feet in thickness, formed of blue tomb- 40 stones, placed edgewise. Over this crater, rose a hollow cone, or pyramid, made of heavy marble slabs, and filled with mill-stones, cannon balls, blocks of marble, chain-shot, iron hooks, plow- 45 coulters, and every dangerous missile that could be imagined. The spaces between the mine and the sides of each ship were likewise filled with paving stones, ironbound stakes, harpoons, and other pro- 50 jectiles. The whole fabric was then covered by a smooth light flooring of planks and brick-work, upon which was a pile of wood. This was to be lighted at the proper time, in order that the two vessels 55 might present the appearance of simple fire-ships, intended only to excite a conflagration of the bridge. On the For

tune a slow match, very carefully prepared, communicated with the submerged mine, which was to explode at a nicelycalculated moment. The eruption of the 5 other floating volcano was to be regulated by an ingenious piece of clock-work, by which, at the appointed time, fire, struck from a flint, was to inflame the hidden mass of gunpowder below.

In addition to these two infernal machines, or hell-burners,' as they were called, a fleet of thirty-two smaller ves-sels was prepared. Covered with tar, turpentine, rosin, and filled with inflammable and combustible materials, these barks were to be senɩ from Antwerp down the river in detachments of eight every half hour with the ebb tide. The object was to clear the way, if possible, of the raft, and to occupy the attention of the Spaniards, until the Fortune and the Hope should come down upon the bridge.

The 5th April, being the day following that on which the successful assault upon Liefkenshoek and Saint Anthony had taken place, was fixed for the descent of the fire-ships. So soon as it should be dark, the thirty-two lesser burning-vessels, under the direction of Admiral Jacob Jacobzoon, were to be sent forth from the neighborhood of the 'Boor's Sconce' - a fort close to the city walls in accordance with the Italian's plan. 'Runa-way Jacob,' however, or Koppen Loppen,' had earned no new laurels which could throw into the shade that approbrious appellation. He was not one of Holland's naval heroes, but, on the whole, a very incompetent officer; exactly the man to damage the best concerted scheme which the genius of others could invent. Accordingly, Koppen-Loppen began with a grave mistake. Instead of allowing the precursory fire-ships to drift down the stream, at the regular intervals agreed upon, he despatched them all rapidly, and helter skelter, one after another, as fast as they could be set forth on their career. Not long afterwards, he sent the two 'hell-burners,' the Fortune and the Hope, directly in their wake. Thus the whole fiery fleet had set forth, almost at once, upon its fatal voyage.

It was known to Parma that preparations for an attack were making at Antwerp, but as to the nature of the danger he was necessarily in the dark. He was anticipating an invasion by a fleet from

5

the city in combination with a squadron of Zeelanders coming up from below. So soon as the first vessels, therefore, with their trains not yet lighted, were discovered bearing down from the city, he was confirmed in his conjecture. His drums and trumpets instantly called to arms, and the whole body of his troops was mustered upon the bridge, the palisades, and in the nearest forts. Thus the 10 preparations to avoid or to contend with the danger, were leading the Spaniards into the very jaws of destruction. Alexander, after crossing and recrossing the river, giving minute directions for re- 15 pelling the expected assault, finally stationed himself in the block-house at the point of junction, on the Flemish side, between the palisade and the bridge of boats. He was surrounded by a group 20 of superior officers, among whom Richebourg, Billy, Gaetano, Cessis, and the Englishman Sir Rowland Yorke, were conspicuous.

It was a dark, mild evening of early 25 spring. As the fleet of vessels dropped slowly down the river, they suddenly became luminous, each ship flaming out of the darkness, a phantom of living fire. The very waves of the Scheldt seemed 30 glowing with the conflagration, while its banks were lighted up with a preternatural glare. It was a wild, pompous, theatrical spectacle. The array of soldiers on both sides the river, along the dykes 35 and upon the bridge, with banners waving, and spear and cuirass glancing in the lurid light; the demon fleet, guided by no human hand, wrapped in flames, and flitting through the darkness, with ir- 40 regular movement, but portentous aspect, at the caprice of wind and tide; the deathlike silence of expectation, which had succeeded the sound of trumpet and the shouts of the soldiers; and the weird glow which had supplanted the darkness - all combined with the sense of imminent and mysterious danger to excite and oppress the imagination.

Last of all came the two infernal ships, swaying unsteadily with the current; the pilots of course, as they neared the bridge, having noiselessly effected their escape in the skiffs. The slight fire upon the deck scarcely illuminated the dark phantom-like hulls. Both were carried by the current clear of the raft, which, by a great error of judgment, as it now appeared, on the part of the builders, had only been made to protect the floating portion of the bridge. The Fortune came first, staggering inside the raft, and then lurching, clumsily against the dyke, and grounding near Kalloo, without touching the bridge. There was a moment's pause of expectation. At last the slow match upon the deck burned out, and there was a faint and partial explosion, by which little or no damage was produced.

Parma instantly called for volunteers to board the mysterious vessel. The desperate expedition was headed by the bold Rowland Yorke, a Londoner, of whom one day there was more to be heard in Netherland history. The party sprang into the deserted and now harmless volcano, extinguishing the slight fires that were smoldering on the deck, and thrusting spears and long poles into the hidden recesses of the hold. There was, however, little time to pursue these perilous investigations, and the party soon made their escape to the bridge.

The troops of Parma, crowding on the palisade, and looking over the parapets, now began to greet the exhibition with peals of derisive laughter. It was but child's play, they thought, to threaten a Spanish army, and a general like Alexander Farnese, with such paltry fireworks as these. Nevertheless all eyes 45 were anxiously fixed upon the remaining fire-ship, or hell-burner,' the Hope, which had now drifted very near the place of its destination. Tearing her way between the raft and the shore, she struck heavily against the bridge on the Kalloo side, close to the block-house at the commencement of the floating portion of the bridge. A thin wreath of smoke was seen curling over a slight and smoldering fire upon her deck.

Presently, the Spaniards, as they gazed so from the bridge, began to take heart again. One after another, many of the lesser vessels drifted blindly against the raft, where they entangled themselves among the hooks and gigantic spear-heads, 55 and burned slowly out without causing any extensive conflagration. Others grounded on the banks of the river, be

Marquis Richebourg, standing on the bridge, laughed loudly at the apparently impotent conclusion of the whole adven

body was discovered, doubled around an iron chain, which hung from one of the bridge-boats in the center of the river. The veteran Robles, Seigneur de Billy, a 5 Portuguese officer of eminent service and high military rank, was also destroyed. Months afterwards, his body was discovered adhering to the timber-work of the bridge, upon the ultimate removal of that 10 structure, and was only recognized by a peculiar gold chain which he habitually wore. Parma himself was thrown to the ground, stunned by a blow on the shoulder from a flying stake. The page, who was behind him, carrying his helmet, fell dead without a wound, killed by the concussion of the air.