23rd May.

The Swint, or great sea-channel of Sluys, being now completely in the
possession of the stadholder, he deliberately proceeded to lay out his
lines, to make his entrenched camp, and to invest his city with the
beautiful neatness which ever characterized his sieges. A groan came from
the learned Lipsius, as he looked from the orthodox shades of Louvain
upon the progress of the heretic prince.

"Would that I were happier," he cried, "but things are not going on in
Flanders as I could wish. How easy it would have been to save Sluys,
which we are now trying so hard to do, had we turned our attention
thither in time! But now we have permitted the enemy to entrench and
fortify himself, and we are the less excusable because we know to our
cost how felicitously he fights with the spade, and that he builds works
like an ancient Roman. . . . Should we lose Sluys, which God forbid,
how much strength and encouragement will be acquired by the foe, and by
all who secretly or openly favour him! Our neighbours are all straining
their eyes, as from a watch-tower, eager to see the result of all these
doings. But what if they too should begin to move? Where should we be? I
pray God to have mercy on the Netherlanders, whom He has been so many
years chastising with heavy whips."

It was very true. The man with the spade had been allowed to work too
long at his felicitous vocation. There had been a successful effort made
to introduce reinforcements to the garrison. Troops, to the number of
fifteen hundred, had been added to those already shut up there, but the
attempts to send in supplies were not so fortunate. Maurice had
completely invested the town before the end of May, having undisputed
possession of the harbour and of all the neighbouring country. He was
himself encamped on the west side of the Swint; Charles van der Noot
lying on the south. The submerged meadows, stretching all around in the
vicinity of the haven, he had planted thickly with gunboats. Scarcely a
bird or a fish could go into or out of the place. Thus the stadholder
exhibited to the Spaniards who, fifteen miles off towards the west, had
been pounding and burrowing three years long before Ostend without
success, what he understood by a siege.

On the 22nd of May a day of solemn prayer and fasting was, by command of
Maurice, celebrated throughout the besieging camp. In order that the day
should be strictly kept in penance, mortification, and thanksgiving, it