This cessation of traffic was that which principally excited the anxiety of Aldegonde.

He could not bring himself to believe in the possibility of a blockade, by an army of eight or ten thousand men, of a great and wealthy city, where at least twenty thousand citizens were capable of bearing arms.

Had he thoroughly understood the deprivations under which Alexander was labouring, perhaps he would have been even more confident as to the result.
"With regard to the affair of the river Scheldt," wrote Parma to Philip, "I should like to send your Majesty a drawing of the whole scheme; for the work is too vast to be explained by letters.

The more I examine it, the more astonished I am that it should have been conducted to this point; so many forts, dykes, canals, new inventions, machinery, and engines, have been necessarily required." He then proceeded to enlighten the King--as he never failed to do in all his letters--as to his own impoverished, almost helpless condition.
Money, money, men! This was his constant cry.

All would be in vain, he said, if he were thus neglected.