Meantime, affairs in the city were more difficult to adjust.  The mutineers raised an altar of chests and bales upon the public square, and celebrated mass under the open sky, solemnly swearing to be true to each other to the last.  The scenes of carousing and merry-making were renewed at the expense of the citizens, who were again exposed to nightly alarms from the boisterous mirth and ceaseless mischief-making of the soldiers.  Before the end of the month; the Broad Council, exhausted by the incubus which had afflicted them so many weeks, acceded to the demand of Requesens.  The four hundred thousand crowns were furnished, the Grand Commander accepting them as a loan, and giving in return bonds duly signed and countersigned, together with a mortgage upon all the royal domains.  The citizens received the documents, as a matter of form, but they had handled such securities before, and valued them but slightly.  The mutineers now agreed to settle with the Governor-General, on condition of receiving all their wages, either in cash or cloth, together with a solemn promise of pardon for all their acts of insubordination.  This pledge was formally rendered with appropriate religious ceremonies, by Requesens, in the cathedral.  The payments were made directly afterwards, and a great banquet was held on the same day, by the whole mass of the soldiery, to celebrate the event.  The feast took place on the place of the Meer, and was a scene of furious revelry.  The soldiers, more thoughtless than children, had arrayed themselves in extemporaneous costumes, cut from the cloth which they had at last received in payment of their sufferings and their blood.  Broadcloths, silks, satins, and gold-embroidered brocades, worthy of a queen’s wardrobe, were hung in fantastic drapery around the sinewy forms and bronzed faces of the soldiery, who, the day before, had been clothed in rags.  The mirth was fast and furious; and scarce was the banquet finished before every drum-head became a gaming-table, around which gathered groups eager to sacrifice in a moment their dearly-bought gold.

The fortunate or the prudent had not yet succeeded in entirely plundering their companions, when the distant booming of cannon was heard from the river.  Instantly, accoutred as they were in their holiday and fantastic costumes, the soldiers, no longer mutinous, were summoned from banquet and gaming-table, and were ordered forth upon the dykes.  The patriot Admiral Boisot, who had so recently defeated the fleet of Bergen, under the eyes of the Grand Commander, had unexpectedly sailed up the Scheld, determined to destroy the, fleet of Antwerp, which upon that occasion had escaped.  Between, the forts of Lillo and Callao, he met with twenty-two vessels under the command of Vice-Admiral Haemstede.  After a short and sharp action, he was completely victorious.  Fourteen of the enemy’s ships were burned or sunk, with all their crews, and Admiral Haemstede was taken prisoner.  The soldiers