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The garrison were reduced to a mere remnant,
and these utterly worn out by constant fighting and the want of rest.
He should ask for fair and honourable terms, but if these were refused
the garrison and the whole male inhabitants in the city, putting the
women and children in the centre, would sally out and cut their way
through, or die fighting in the midst of the Spaniards. The swimmer who
took the letter was drowned, but his body was washed ashore and the
letter taken to the Duke of Parma.
Three days afterwards a fresh force of the enemy embarked in forty
large boats, and were about to land on an unprotected wharf by the
river-side when Arnold de Groenvelt hung out the white flag. His powder
was exhausted and his guns disabled, and the garrison so reduced that
the greater portion of the walls were left wholly undefended. The Duke
of Parma, who was full of admiration at the extraordinary gallantry of
the defenders, and was doubtless also influenced by the resolution
expressed in his letter by the governor, granted them most honourable
terms.


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