on the other hand, provided more than a hundred sail of various
descriptions, so that the whole surface of the mere was now alive with
ships. Seafights and skirmishes took place almost daily, and it was
obvious that the life and death struggle was now to be fought upon the
water. So long as the Hollanders could hold or dispute the possession of
the lake, it was still possible to succor Harlem from time to time.
Should the Spaniards overcome the Prince's fleet, the city must
inevitably starve.

At last, on the 28th of May, a decisive engagement of the fleets took
place. The vessels grappled with each other, and there was a long,
fierce, hand-to-hand combat. Under Bossu were one hundred vessels; under
Martin Brand, admiral of the patriot fleet, nearly one hundred and fifty,
but of lesser dimensions. Batenburg commanded the troops on board the
Dutch vessels. After a protracted conflict, in which several thousands
were killed, the victory was decided in favor of the Spaniards.
Twenty-two of the Prince's vessels being captured, and the rest totally
routed, Bossu swept across the lake in triumph. The forts belonging to
the patriots were immediately taken, and the Harlemers, with their
friends, entirely excluded from the lake.

This was the beginning of the end. Despair took possession of the city.
The whole population had been long subsisting upon an allowance of a
pound of bread to each man, and half-a-pound for each woman; but the
bread was now exhausted, the famine had already begun, and with the loss
of the lake starvation was close at their doors. They sent urgent
entreaties to, the Prince to attempt something in their behalf. Three
weeks more they assigned as the longest term during which they could
possibly hold out. He sent them word by carrier pigeons to endure yet a
little time, for he was assembling a force, and would still succeed in
furnishing them with supplies. Meantime, through the month of June the
sufferings of the inhabitants increased hourly. Ordinary food had long
since vanished. The population now subsisted on linseed and rape-seed; as
these supplies were exhausted they devoured cats, dogs, rats, and mice,
and when at last these unclean animals had been all consumed, they boiled
the hides of horses and oxen; they ate shoe-leather; they plucked the
nettles and grass from the graveyards, and the weeds which grew between
the stones of the pavement, that with such food they might still support
life a little