On the night selected for the enterprise, that of the 27th September, the moon was a day old in its fourth quarter, and rose a little before twelve.  It was low water at between four and five in the morning.  The Grand Commander, at the appointed hour of midnight, crossed to Philipsland, and stood on the shore to watch the setting forth of the little army.  He addressed a short harangue to them, in which he skillfully struck the chords of Spanish chivalry, and the national love of glory, and was answered with loud and enthusiastic cheers.  Don Osorio d’Ulloa then stripped and plunged into the sea immediately after the guides.  He was followed by the Spaniards, after whom came the Germans and then the Walloons.  The two hundred sappers and miners came next, and Don Gabriel Peralta, with his Spanish company; brought up the rear.  It was a wild night.  Incessant lightning, alternately revealed and obscured the progress of the midnight march through the black waters, as the anxious Commander watched the expedition from the shore, but the soldiers were quickly swallowed up in the gloom.  As they advanced cautiously, two by two, the daring adventurers found themselves soon nearly up to their necks in the waves, while so narrow was the submerged bank along which they were marching, that a misstep to the right or left was fatal.  Luckless individuals repeatedly sank to rise no more.  Meantime, as the sickly light, of the waning moon came forth at intervals through the stormy clouds the soldiers could plainly perceive the files of Zealand vessels through which they were to march, and which were anchored as close to the flat as the water would allow.  Some had recklessly stranded themselves, in their eagerness to interrupt the passage, of the troops, and the artillery played unceasingly from the larger vessels.  Discharges of musketry came continually from all, but the fitful lightning rendered the aim difficult and the fire comparatively harmless while the Spaniards were, moreover, protected, as to a large part of their bodies, by the water in which they were immersed.

At times; they halted for breath, or to engage in fierce skirmishes with their nearest assailants.  Standing breast-high in the waves, and surrounded at intervals by total darkness, they were yet able to pour an occasional well-directed volley into the hostile ranks.  The Zealanders, however, did, not assail them with fire-arms alone.  They transfixed some with their fatal harpoons; they dragged others from the path with boathooks; they beat out the brains of others with heavy flails.  Many were the mortal duels thus fought in the darkness, and, as it were, in the bottom of the sea; many were the deeds of audacity which no eye was to mark save those by whom they were achieved.  Still, in spite of all impediments and losses, the Spaniards steadily advanced.  If other arms proved less available, they were attached by the fierce taunts and invectives of their often invisible foes who reviled them as water-dogs, fetching and carrying for a master who despised them; as mercenaries who coined their blood for gold, and were employed by tyrants for the basest uses.  If stung by these mocking voices, they turned in the darkness to chastise their unseen tormentors, they were certain to be trampled upon by their comrades, and to be pushed from their narrow pathway into the depths of the sea.  Thus many perished.