But Alexander was not prone to premature despair.

"I arrived," said he to Philip in a letter written on the same evening, "at the very nick of time." A less hopeful person might have thought that he had arrived several hours too late.

Having brought with him every man that could be spared from Beveren and from the bridge, he now ordered Camillo del Monte to transport some additional pieces of artillery from Holy Cross and from Saint James to Fort Saint Georg.

At the same time a sharp cannonade was to be maintained upon the rebel fleet from all the forts.
Mondragon, with a hundred musketeers and pikemen, was sent forward likewise as expeditiously as possible to Saint George.

No one could be more alert.