This siege formed another of those numerous instances which became so memorable from the mixture of heroism and horror. Jean Vanderdoes, known in literature by the name of Dousa, and celebrated for his Latin poems, commanded the place. Valdez, who conducted the siege, urged Dousa to surrender; when the latter replied, in the name of the inhabitants, "that when provisions failed them, they would devour their left hands, reserving the right to defend their liberty." A party of the inhabitants, driven to disobedience and revolt by the excess of misery to which they were shortly reduced, attempted to force the burgomaster, Vanderwerf, to supply them with bread, or yield up the place. But he sternly made the celebrated answer, which, cannot be remembered without shuddering--"Bread I have none; but if my death can afford you relief, tear my body in pieces, and let those who are most hungry devour it!" But in this extremity relief at last was afforded by the decisive measures of the Prince of Orange, who ordered all the neighboring dikes to be opened and the sluices raised, thus sweeping away the besiegers on the waves of the ocean: the inhabitants of Leyden were apprised of this intention by means of letters intrusted to the safe carriage of pigeons trained for the purpose. The inundation was no sooner effected than hundreds of flat-bottomed boats brought abundance of supplies to the half-famished town; while a violent storm carried the sea across the country for twenty leagues around, and destroyed the Spanish camp, with above one thousand soldiers, who were overtaken by the flood. This deliverance took place on the 3d of October, on which day it is still annually celebrated by the descendants of the grateful citizens. It was now for the first time that Spain would consent to listen to advice or mediation, which had for its object the termination of this frightful war. The emperor Maximilian II. renewed at this epoch his efforts with Philip; and under such favorable auspices conferences commenced at Breda, where the counts Swartzenberg and Hohenloe, brothers-in-law of the Prince of Orange, met, on the part of the emperor, the deputies from the king of Spain and the patriots; and hopes of a complete pacification were generally entertained. But three months of deliberation proved their fallacy. The patriots demanded toleration for the reformed religion. The king's deputies obstinately refused it. The congress was therefore broken up; and both oppressors and oppressed resumed their arms with increased vigor and tenfold desperation. Requesens had long fixed his eyes on Zealand as the scene of an expedition by which he hoped to repair the failure before Leyden; and he caused an attempt to be made on the town of Zuriczee, in the island of Scauwen, which merits record as one of the boldest and most original enterprises of the war.