All who were willing
to work and learn were heartily welcomed; those who were unwilling
to do so were soon made to feel that a besieged city was no place
for them.
While the fighting was going on the archduke had attempted to
capture the place by treason. He engaged a traitor named Coningsby;
who crossed to England, obtained letters of introduction to Vere,
and then went to Ostend. Thence he sent intelligence to the besiegers
of all that took place in the town, placing his letters at night
in an old boat sunk in the mud on the bank of the Old Haven, a
Spaniard wading across at low tide and fetching them away. He then
attempted to bribe a sergeant to blow up the powder magazine. The
sergeant revealed the plot. Coningsby was seized and confessed
everything, and by an act of extraordinary clemency was only
sentenced to be whipped out of town.
This act of treachery on the part of the archduke justified the
otherwise dishonourable stratagem afterwards played by Vere upon
him. All through October and November the Spaniards were hard at
work advancing their batteries, sinking great baskets filled with
sand in the Old Haven to facilitate the passage of the troops, and
building floating batteries in the Geule. On the night of the 4th
of December they advanced suddenly to the attack. Vere and his
officers leapt from their beds and rushed to the walls, and after
a fierce struggle the besiegers were driven back.
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