Squadrons at sea gave a double interest to the land operations; and the celebrated brothers Frederick and Ambrose Spinola founded their reputation on these opposing elements.  Frederick was killed in one of the naval combats with the Dutch galleys, and the fame of reducing Ostend was reserved for Ambrose.  This afterward celebrated general had undertaken the command at the earnest entreaties of the archduke and the king of Spain, and by the firmness and vigor of his measures he revived the courage of the worn-out assailants of the place.  Redoubled attacks and multiplied mines at length reduced the town to a mere mass of ruin, and scarcely left its still undaunted garrison sufficient footing on which to prolong their desperate defence.  Ostend at length surrendered, on the 22d of September, 1604, and the victors marched in over its crumbled walls and shattered batteries.  Scarcely a vestige of the place remained beyond those terrible evidences of destruction.  Its ditches, filled up with the rubbish of ramparts, bastions, and redoubts, left no distinct line of separation between the operations of its attack and its defence.  It resembled rather a vast sepulchre than a ruined town, a mountain of earth and rubbish, without a single house in which the wretched remnant of the inhabitants could hide their heads—­a monument of desolation on which victory might have sat and wept.

During the progress of this memorable siege Queen Elizabeth of England had died, after a long and, it must be pronounced, a glorious reign; though the glory belongs rather to the nation than to the monarch, whose memory is marked with indelible stains of private cruelty, as in the cases of Essex and Mary Queen of Scots, and of public wrongs, as in that of her whole system of tyranny in Ireland.  With respect to the United Provinces she was a harsh protectress and a capricious ally.  She in turns advised them to remain faithful to the old impurities of religion and to their intolerable king; refused to incorporate them with her own states; and then used her best efforts for subjecting them to her sway.  She seemed to take pleasure in the uncertainty to which she reduced them, by constant demands for payment of her loans, and threats of making peace with Spain.  Thus the states-general were not much affected by the news of her death; and so rejoiced were they at the accession of James I. to the throne of England that all the bells of Holland rang out merry peals; bonfires were set blazing all over the country; a letter of congratulation was despatched to the new monarch; and it was speedily followed by a solemn embassy composed of Prince Frederick Henry, the grand pensionary De Barneveldt, and others of the first dignitaries of the republic.  These ambassadors were grievously disappointed at the reception given to them by James, who treated them as little better than rebels to their lawful king.  But this first disposition to contempt and insult was soon overcome by the united talents of Barneveldt and the great duke of Sully, who were at the same period ambassadors from France at the English court.  The result of the negotiations was an agreement between those two powers to take the republic under their protection, and use their best efforts for obtaining the recognition of its independence by Spain.