at last.  The Spaniards poured into this fort, so long the object of their attack, expecting instantly to sweep into the city with sword and fire.  As they mounted its wall they became for the first time aware of the new and stronger fortification which had been secretly constructed on the inner side.  The reason why the ravelin had been at last conceded was revealed.  The half moon, whose existence they had not suspected, rose before them bristling with cannon.  A sharp fire was instantly opened upon the besiegers, while at the same instant the ravelin, which the citizens had undermined, blew up with a severe explosion, carrying into the air all the soldiers who had just entered it so triumphantly.  This was the turning point.  The retreat was sounded, and the Spaniards fled to their camp, leaving at least three hundred dead beneath the walls.  Thus was a second assault, made by an overwhelming force and led by the most accomplished generals of Spain, signally and gloriously repelled by the plain burghers of Harlem.

It became now almost evident that the city could be taken neither by regular approaches nor by sudden attack.  It was therefore resolved that it should be reduced by famine.  Still, as the winter wore on, the immense army without the walls were as great sufferers by that scourge as the population within.  The soldiers fell in heaps before the diseases engendered by intense cold and insufficient food, for, as usual in such sieges, these deaths far outnumbered those inflicted by the enemy’s hand.  The sufferings inside the city necessarily increased day by day, the whole population being put on a strict allowance of food.  Their supplies were daily diminishing, and with the approach of the spring and the thawing of the ice on the lake, there was danger that they would be entirely cut off.  If the possession of the water were lost, they must yield or starve; and they doubted whether the Prince would be able to organize a fleet.  The gaunt spectre of Famine already rose before them with a menace which could not be misunderstood.  In their misery they longed for the assaults of the Spaniards, that they might look in the face of a less formidable foe.  They paraded the ramparts daily, with drums beating, colors flying, taunting the besiegers to renewed attempts.  To inflame the religious animosity of their antagonists, they attired themselves in the splendid, gold-embroidered vestments of the priests, which they took from the churches, and moved about in mock procession, bearing aloft images bedizened in ecclesiastical finery, relics, and other symbols, sacred in Catholic eyes, which they afterwards hurled from the ramparts, or broke, with derisive shouts, into a thousand fragments.