Ambrosio de Spinola, who offered his services and his money to the
archdukes and promised that if he, though inexperienced in warfare, were
given the command, he would take Ostend. He fulfilled his promise.
Without regard to loss of life he pressed on the siege, and though as
fast as one line of defences was taken another arose behind it to bar
his progress, little by little he advanced and bit by bit the area held
by the garrison grew less. At last in the spring of 1604, under the
pressure of the States-General, Maurice led an army of 11,000 men into
Flanders in April, 1604, and laid siege to Sluis on May 19. Both Maurice
and William Lewis were still unwilling to run the risk of an attack on
Spinola's army in its lines, and so the two sieges went on side by side,
as it were independently. Sluis fell at the end of August, and Ostend
was then at its last gasp. Urged now by the deputies of the States to
make a direct effort to relieve the heroic garrison, Maurice and his
cousin, after wasting some precious time in protesting against the step,
began to march southward. It was too late. What was left of Ostend
surrendered on September 20, and Spinola became the master of a heap of
ruins. It is said that this three years' siege cost the Spaniards 80,000
lives, to say nothing of the outlay of vast expenditure. Whether Maurice
and William Lewis were right or wrong in their reluctance to assail
Spinola's entrenched camp, it is certain that they were better judges of
the military situation than the civilian deputies of the States. In any
case the capture of Sluis was an offset to the loss of Ostend; and its
importance was marked by the appointment of Frederick Henry, the young
brother of the stadholder, as governor of the seaport and the
surrounding district, which received the name of States-Flanders. The
tremendous exertions put forward for the defence of Ostend had been a
very serious drain upon the resources of the United Provinces,
especially upon those of Holland. Taxation was already So high that
Oldenbarneveldt and many other leading members of the States-General and