32. For five months all other operations were suspended; all the
energy of Requesens, on the one hand, was directed toward getting
possession of the city, and all the energy of the Prince of Orange, on
the other hand, toward assisting the citizens, and preventing it from
being taken. The issue depended entirely, however, on the bravery and
resolution of the citizens of Leyden themselves. Pent up within their
walls, they had to resist the attacks and stratagems of the besiegers;
and all that the Prince of Orange could do was to occupy the
surrounding country, harass the besiegers as much as possible, and
enable the citizens to hold out, by conveying to them supplies of
provisions and men.

33. There was not in the city a single scion of a noble family. There
were no men trained to military operations. It was a city of artisans
and tradesmen, and the Spaniards expected scarcely more than a show of
resistance from a foe so ignoble. As well might the sheep resist a
pack of ravening wolves as the men of the counting-house and workshop
resist the best trained soldiers of Europe. But nobly, nay, up to the
highest heroic pitch of human nature, did the citizens behave! They
had to endure a siege in its most dreary form--that of a blockade.
Instead of attempting to storm the town, Valdez, the Spanish general,
resolved to reduce it by the slow process of starvation. For this
purpose he completely surrounded the town by a circle of forts more
than sixty in number; and the inhabitants thus saw themselves walled
completely in from the rest of the earth, with its growing crops and
its well-filled granaries, and restricted entirely to whatever
quantity of provisions there happened to be on the small spot of
ground on which they walked up and down. Their only means of
communication with the Prince of Orange was by carrier-pigeons trained
for the purpose.