be apprehended from the broken, mutinous, and dispersed forces of the enemy, the siege operations were conducted in a leisurely manner.  What was the astonishment, therefore, among the soldiers, when a rumour flew about the camp in the early days of November that the indomitable Spinola was again advancing upon them!  It was perfectly true.  With extraordinary perseverance he had gathered up six or seven thousand infantry and twelve companies of horse—­all the remnants of the splendid armies with which he had taken the field at midsummer—­and was now marching to the relief of Groll, besieged as it was by a force at least doubly as numerous as his own.  It was represented to the stadholder, however, that an impassable morass lay between him and the enemy, and that there would therefore be time enough to complete his entrenchments before Spinola could put his foolhardy attempt into execution.  But the Catholic general, marching faster than rumour itself, had crossed the impracticable swamp almost before a spadeful of earth had been turned in the republican camp.  His advance was in sight even while the incredulous were sneering at the absurdity of his supposed project.  Informed by scouts of the weakest point in the stadholder’s extended lines, Spinola was directing himself thither with beautiful precision.  Maurice hastily contracted both his wings, and concentrated himself in the village of Lebel.  At last the moment had come for a decisive struggle.  There could be little doubt of the result.  All the advantage was with the republican army.  The Catholics had arrived in front of the enemy fatigued by forced marches through quagmires, in horrible weather, over roads deemed impassable.  The States’ troops were fresh, posted on ground of their own choosing, and partially entrenched.  To the astonishment, even to the horror of the most eager portion of the army, the stadholder deliberately, and despite the groans of his soldiers, refused the combat, and gave immediate orders for raising the siege and abandoning the field.

On the 12th of November he broke up his camp and withdrew to a village called Zelem.  On the same day the marquis, having relieved the city, without paying the expected price, retired in another direction, and established what was left of his army in the province of Munster.  The campaign was closed.  And thus the great war which had run its stormy course for nearly forty years, dribbled out of existence, sinking away that rainy November in the dismal fens of Zutphen.  The long struggle for independence had come, almost unperceived, to an end.

Peace had not arrived, but the work of the armies was over for many a long year.  Freedom and independence were secured.  A deed or two, never to be forgotten by Netherland hearts, was yet to be done on the ocean, before the long and intricate negotiations for peace should begin, and the weary people permit themselves to rejoice; but the prize was already won.