Never was money or jewels of greater service than now, for those that
had anything of that sort to offer were soonest helped.
There was a burgher of the town who, seeing a boat coming near him,
but out of his call, by the help of a speaking trumpet, told the
soldiers in it he would give them 20,000 dollars to fetch him off.
They rowed close to the shore, and got him with his wife and six
children into the boat, but such throngs of people got about the boat
that had like to have sunk her, so that the soldiers were fain to
drive a great many out again by main force, and while they were doing
this some of the enemies coming down the street desperately drove them
all into the water.
The boat, however, brought the burgher and his wife and children safe,
and though they had not all that wealth about them, yet in jewels and
money he gave them so much as made all the fellows very rich.
I cannot pretend to describe the cruelty of this day: the town by
five in the afternoon was all in a flame; the wealth consumed was
inestimable, and a loss to the very conqueror. I think there was
little or nothing left but the great church and about a hundred
houses.
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