last gasp.

For the cannonading had thoroughly done its work. Eighteen days long the
burghers and what remained of the garrison had lived upon the ramparts,
never leaving their posts, but eating, sleeping, and fighting day and
night. Of the sixteen hundred Dutch and English but seven hundred
remained. At last a swimming messenger was sent out by the besieged with
despatches for the States, to the purport that the city could hold out no
longer. A breach in the wall had been effected wide enough to admit a
hundred men abreast. Sluys had, in truth, already fallen, and it was
hopeless any longer to conceal the fact. If not relieved within a day or
two, the garrison would be obliged to surrender; but they distinctly
stated, that they had all pledged themselves, soldiers and burghers, men,
women, and all, unless the most honourable terms were granted, to set
fire to the city in a hundred places, and then sally, in mass, from the
gates, determined to fight their way through, or be slain in the attempt.
The messenger who carried these despatches was drowned, but the letters
were saved, and fell into Parma's hands.

At the same moment, Leicester was making, at last, an effort to raise the
siege. He brought three or four thousand men from Flushing, and landed
them at Ostend; thence he marched to Blanckenburg. He supposed that if
he could secure that little port, and thus cut the Duke completely off
from the sea, he should force the Spanish commander to raise (or at least
suspend) the siege in order to give him battle. Meantime, an opportunity
would be afforded for Maurice and Hohenlo to force an entrance into the
harbour of Sluys, In this conjecture he was quite correct; but
unfortunately he did not thoroughly carry out his own scheme. If the
Earl had established himself at Blanckenburg, it would have been
necessary for Parma--as he himself subsequently declared-to raise the