“Yesterday was the fifth sally we made,” he observed:  “Since I followed the wars I never saw valianter captains, nor willinger soldiers.  At eleven o’clock the enemy entered the ditch of our fort, with trenches upon wheels, artillery-proof.  We sallied out, recovered their trenches, slew the governor of Dam, two Spanish captains, with a number of others, repulsed them into their artillery, kept the ditch until yesternight, and will recover it, with God’s help, this night, or else pay dearly for it . . . . .  I care not what may become of me in this world, so that her Majesty’s honour,—­with the rest of honourable good friends, will think me an honest man.”

No one ever doubted the simple-hearted Welshman’s honesty, any more than his valour; but he confided in the candour of others who were somewhat more sophisticated than himself.  When he warned her, royal Majesty against the peace-makers, it was impossible for him to know that the great peace-maker was Elizabeth herself.

After the expiration of a month the work had become most fatiguing.  The enemy’s trenches had been advanced close to the ramparts, and desperate conflicts were of daily occurrence.  The Spanish mines, too, had been pushed forward towards the extensive wine-caverns below the city, and the danger of a vast explosion or of a general assault from beneath their very feet, seemed to the inhabitants imminent.  Eight days long, with scarcely an intermission, amid those sepulchral vaults, dimly-lighted with torches, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, Italians, fought hand to hand, with pike, pistol, and dagger, within the bowels of the earth.

Meantime the operations of the States were not commendable.  The ineradicable jealousy between the Leicestrians and the Barneveldians had done its work.  There was no hearty effort for the relief of Sluys.  There were suspicions that, if saved, the town would only be taken possession of by the Earl of Leicester, as an additional vantage-point for coercing the country into subjection to his arbitrary authority.  Perhaps it would be transferred to Philip by Elizabeth as part of the price for peace.  There was a growing feeling in Holland and Zeeland that as those Provinces bore all the expense of the war, it was an imperative necessity that they should limit their operations to the defence of their own soil.  The suspicions as to the policy of the English government were sapping the very foundations of the alliance, and there was small disposition on the part of the Hollanders, therefore, to protect what remained of Flanders, and thus to strengthen the hands of her whom they were beginning to look upon as an enemy.

Maurice and Hohenlo made, however, a foray into Brabant, by way of diversion to the siege of Sluys, and thus compelled Farnese to detach a considerable force under Haultepenne into that country, and thereby to weaken himself.  The expedition of Maurice was not unsuccessful.  There was some sharp skirmishing between Hohenlo and Haultepenne, in which the latter, one of the most valuable and distinguished generals on the royal side, was defeated and slain; the fort of Engel, near Bois-le-Duc, was taken, and that important city itself endangered; but, on the other hand, the contingent on which Leicester relied from the States to assist in relieving Sluys was not forthcoming.