the enemy the council gave
orders that they should never risk the passage unless they amounted to a
certain number; and the result, unfortunately, was that none attempted
it because the required number could not be collected at one time.
Several attacks were also made from Antwerp on the ships of the
Spaniards, which were not entirely unsuccessful; some of the latter were
captured, others sunk, and all that was required was to execute similar
attempts on a grand scale. But however zealously St. Aldegonde urged
this, still not a captain was to be found who would command a vessel for
that purpose.

Amid these delays the winter expired, and scarcely had the ice begun to
disappear when the construction of the bridge of boats was actively
resumed by the besiegers. Between the two piers a space of more than
six hundred paces still remained to be filled up, which was effected in
the following manner: Thirty-two flat-bottomed vessels, each sixty-six
feet long and twenty broad, were fastened together with strong cables
and iron chains, but at a distance from each other of about twenty feet
to allow a free passage to the stream. Each boat, moreover, was moored
with two cables, both up and down the stream, but which, as the water
rose with the tide, or sunk with the ebb, could be slackened or
tightened. Upon the boats great masts were laid which reached from one
to another, and, being covered with planks, formed a regular road,
which, like that along the piers, was protected with a balustrade. This
bridge of boats, of which the two piers formed a continuation, had,
including the latter, a length of twenty-four thousand paces. This
formidable work was so ingeniously constructed, and so richly furnished
with the instruments of destruction, that it seemed almost capable, like
a living creature, of defending itself at the word of command,
scattering death among all who approached. Besides the two forts of St.
Maria and St. Philip, which terminated the bridge on either shore, and
the two wooden bastions on the bridge itself, which were filled with
soldiers and mounted with guns on all sides, each of the two-and-thirty
vessels was manned with thirty soldiers and four sailors, and showed the
cannon's mouth to the enemy, whether he came up from Zealand or down
from Antwerp. There were in all ninety-seven cannon, which were
distributed beneath and above the bridge, and more than fifteen hundred
men who were posted, partly in the forts, pa