He now laid before the senate of Antwerp a plan for some vessels likely to prove more effective than the gigantic ‘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,’ measuring, respectively, one hundred and fifty, three hundred and fifty, and five hundred tons.  Besides these, he wished sixty flat-bottomed scows, which he proposed to send down the river, partially submerged, disposed in the shape of a half moon, with innumerable anchors and grapnel’s thrusting themselves out of the water at every point.  This machine was intended to operate against the raft.

Ignorance and incredulity did their work, as usual, and Gianbelli’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 parsimony upon so momentous an occasion, but he at the same time determined, even 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; 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 names of the ‘Fortune’ and the ‘Hope,’ and set himself energetically to justify their titles by their efficiency.  They were to be marine volcanos, which, drifting down the river with tide, were to deal destruction where the Spaniards 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 and five feet wide.  Upon this was built a chamber of marble mason-work, forty feet long, three and a half feet broad, as many high, and with side-walks [walls?  D.W.] five feet in thickness.

This was the crater.  It was filled with seven thousand 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 tombstones, 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, plough-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, iron-bound stakes, harpoons, and other projectiles.  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 might present the appearance of simple fire-ships, intended only to excite a conflagration of the bridge.  On the ‘Fortune’ a slow match, very carefully prepared, communicated with the submerged mine, which was to explode at a nicely-calculated moment.  The eruption of the 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.