The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 19: 1572-73Motley, John Lothrop
History
The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 19: 1572-73
Motley, John Lothrop
Netherlands -- Church history; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648
The singular mood which has been recorded of a high-spirited officer of
the garrison, Captain Corey, illustrated the horror with which such
scenes of carnage were regarded by noble natures. Of a gentle
disposition originally, but inflamed almost to insanity by a
contemplation of Spanish cruelty, he had taken up the profession of arms,
to which he had a natural repugnance. Brave to recklessness, he led his
men on every daring outbreak, on every perilous midnight adventure.
Armed only with his rapier, without defensive armor, he was ever found
where the battle raged most fiercely, and numerous were the victims who
fell before his sword. On returning, however, from such excursions,
he invariably shut himself in his quarters, took to his bed, and lay for
days, sick with remorse, and bitterly lamenting all that bloodshed in
which he had so deeply participated, and which a cruel fate seemed to
render necessary. As the gentle mood subsided, his frenzy would return,
and again he would rush to the field, to seek new havoc and fresh victims
for his rage.
The combats before the walls were of almost daily occurrence. On the
25th March, one thousand of the besieged made a brilliant sally, drove in
all the outposts of the enemy, burned three hundred tents, and captured
seven cannon, nine standards, and many wagon-loads of provisions, all
which they succeeded in bringing with them into the city.--Having thus
reinforced themselves, in a manner not often practised by the citizens of
a beleaguered town, in the very face of thirty thousand veterans--having
killed eight hundred of the enemy, which was nearly one for every man
engaged, while they lost but four of their own party--the Harlemers, on
their return, erected a trophy of funereal but exulting aspect. A mound
of earth was constructed upon the ramparts, in the form of a colossal
grave, in full view of the enemy's camp, and upon it were planted the
cannon and standards so gallantly won in the skirmish, with the taunting
inscription floating from the centre of the mound "Harlem is the
graveyard of the Spaniards."
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