and familiarly called “Glippers,” despatched from the camp many letters to their rebellious acquaintances in the city.  In these epistles the citizens of Leyden were urgently and even pathetically exhorted to submission by their loyal brethren, and were implored “to take pity upon their poor old fathers, their daughters, and their wives.”  But the burghers of Leyden thought that the best pity which they could show to those poor old fathers, daughters, and wives, was to keep them from the clutches of the Spanish soldiery; so they made no answer to the Glippers, save by this single line, which they wrote on a sheet of paper, and forwarded, like a letter, to Valdez: 

     “Fistula dulce canit, volucrem cum decipit auceps.”

According to the advice early given by the Prince of Orange, the citizens had taken an account of their provisions of all kinds, including the live stock.  By the end of June, the city was placed on a strict allowance of food, all the provisions being purchased by the authorities at an equitable price.  Half a pound of meat and half a pound of bread was allotted to a full grown man, and to the rest, a due proportion.  The city being strictly invested, no communication, save by carrier pigeons, and by a few swift and skilful messengers called jumpers, was possible.  Sorties and fierce combats were, however, of daily occurrence, and a handsome bounty was offered to any man who brought into the city gates the head of a Spaniard.  The reward was paid many times, but the population was becoming so excited and so apt, that the authorities felt it dangerous to permit the continuance of these conflicts.  Lest the city, little by little, should lose its few disciplined defenders, it was now proclaimed, by sound of church bell, that in future no man should leave the gates.

The Prince had his head-quarters at Delft and at Rotterdam.  Between those two cities, an important fortress, called Polderwaert, secured him in the control of the alluvial quadrangle, watered on two sides by the Yssel and the Meuse.  On the 29th June, the Spaniards, feeling its value, had made an unsuccessful effort to carry this fort by storm.  They had been beaten off, with the loss of several hundred men, the Prince remaining in possession of the position, from which alone he could hope to relieve Leyden.  He still held in his hand the keys with which he could unlock the ocean gates and let the waters in upon the land, and he had long been convinced that nothing could save the city but to break the dykes.  Leyden was not upon the sea, but he could send the sea to.  Leyden, although an army fit to encounter the besieging force under Valdez could not be levied.  The battle of Mookerheyde had, for the, present, quite settled the question, of land relief, but it was possible to besiege the besiegers, with the waves of the ocean.  The Spaniards occupied the coast from the Hague to Vlaardingen, but the dykes along the Meuse and Yssel were in possession