ruined and desolate. It is superfluous to add that the day of its
restoration to the authority of the Union was the beginning of its
renewed prosperity.

Maurice, having placed a national garrison in the place, marched the same
evening straight upon Deventer, seven miles farther down the river,
without pausing to sleep upon his victory. His artillery and munitions
were sent rapidly down the Yssel.

Within five days he had thoroughly invested the city, and brought twenty-
eight guns to bear upon the weakest part of its defences.

It was a large, populous, well-built town, once a wealthy member of the
Hanseatic League, full of fine buildings, both public and private, the
capital of the rich and fertile province of Overyssel, and protected by a
strong wall and moat--as well-fortified a place as could be found in the
Netherlands. The garrison consisted of fourteen hundred Spaniards and
Walloons, under the command of Count Herman van den Berg, first cousin of
Prince Maurice.

No sooner had the States army come before the city than a Spanish captain
observed--"We shall now have a droll siege--cousins on the outside,
cousins on the inside. There will be a sham fight or two, and then the
cousins will make it up, and arrange matters to suit themselves."

Such hints had deeply wounded Van den Berg, who was a fervent Catholic,
and as loyal a servant to Philip II. as he could have been, had that
monarch deserved, by the laws of nature and by his personal services and
virtues, to govern all the swamps of Friesland. He slept on the gibe,
having ordered all the colonels and captains of the garrison to attend at