Leaders were killed on both sides. Catrici, chief of the Italian
artillery, and Braccamonte, commander of a famous Sicilian legion, with
many less-known captains, lost their lives before the town. The noble
young Chatillon, grandson of Coligny, who had distinguished himself at
Nieuport, fell in the Porcupine fort, his head carried off by a cannon-
ball, which destroyed another officer at his side, and just grazed the
ear of the distinguished Colonel Uchtenbroek. Sir Francis Vere, too, was
wounded in the head by a fragment of iron, and was obliged to leave the
town for six weeks till his wound should heal.

The unfortunate inhabitants--men, women, and children--were of course
exposed to perpetual danger, and very many were killed. Their houses
were often burned to the ground, in which cases the English auxiliaries
were indefatigable, not in rendering assistance, but in taking possession
of such household goods as the flames had spared. Nor did they always
wait for such opportunities, but were apt, at the death of an eminent
burgher, to constitute themselves at once universal legatees. Thus,
while honest Bartholomew Tysen, a worthy citizen grocer, was standing
one autumn morning at his own door, a stray cannon-ball took off his
head, and scarcely had he been put in a coffin before his house was
sacked from garret to cellar and all the costly spices, drugs, and other
valuable merchandize of his warehouse--the chief magazine in the town--
together with all his household furniture, appropriated by those London
warriors. Bartholomew's friends and relatives appealed to Sir Francis
Vere for justice, but were calmly informed by that general that Ostend
was like a stranded ship, on its beamends on a beach, and that it was
impossible not to consider it at the mercy of the wreckers. So with this
highly figurative view of the situation from the lips of the governor of
the place and the commander-in-chief of the English as well as the Dutch
garrison, they were fain to go home and bury their dead, finding when