obliged, on various occasions, particularly on the 21st of October of the
preceding year, to address a most decided and peremptory letter to the
estates of Holland and Zealand, forbidding the employment of hostile
measures against Amsterdam. His commands had been reluctantly,
partially, and only temporarily obeyed. The states desisted from
their scheme of reducing the city by famine, but they did not the less
encourage the secret and unofficial expeditions which were daily set on
foot to accomplish the annexation by a sudden enterprise.

Late in November, a desperate attempt had been made by Colonel Helling,
in conjunction with Governor Sonoy, to carry the city by surprise. The
force which the adventurer collected for the purpose was inadequate, and
his plans were unskilfully arranged. He was himself slain in the
streets, at the very commencement of the action; whereupon, in the quaint
language of the contemporary chronicler, "the hearts of his soldiers sank
in their shoes," and they evacuated the city with much greater rapidity
than they had entered it. The Prince was indignant at these violent
measures, which retarded rather than advanced the desired consummation.
At the same time it was an evil of immense magnitude--this anomalous
condition of his capital. Ceaseless schemes were concerted by the
municipal and clerical conspirators within its walls, and various
attempts were known, at different times, to have been contemplated by Don
John, to inflict a home-thrust upon the provinces of Holland and Zealand
at the most vulnerable and vital point. The "Satisfaction" accepted by
Utrecht, in the autumn of 1577, had, however, paved the way for the
recovery of Amsterdam; so that upon February the 8th, 1578, certain
deputies from Utrecht succeeded at last in arranging terms, which were
accepted by the sister city. The basis of the treaty was, as usual,
the nominal supremacy of the Catholic religion, with toleration for the
Reformed worship. The necessary effect would be, as in Harlem, Utrecht,