Despite the unfortunate impression the opening speech of chancellor Peckius had made at the negotiations about the renewal of the truce, the objective of Spain and the regime in Brussels was "not" a war of reconquest of the Republic. Instead the options considered in Madrid were either a limited exercise of the force of weapons, to capture a few of the strategic points the republic had recently acquired (like Cleves), combined with measures of economic warfare, or reliance on economic warfare alone. Spain opted for the first alternative. Immediately after the expiration of the Truce in April 1621, all Dutch ships were ordered out of Spanish ports and the stringent trade embargoes of before 1609 were renewed. After an interval to rebuild the strength of the Army of Flanders Spinola opened a number of land offensives, in which he captured the fortress of Jülich (garrisoned by the Dutch since 1614) in 1622, and Steenbergen in Brabant, before laying siege to the important fortress city of Bergen-op-Zoom. This proved a costly fiasco as Spinola's besieging army of 18,000 melted away through disease and desertion. He therefore had to lift the siege after a few months. The strategic import of this humiliating experience was that the Spanish government now concluded that besieging the strong Dutch fortresses was a waste of time and money and decided to henceforth solely depend on the economic warfare. The subsequent success of Spinola's siege of Breda did not change this decision, and Spain adopted a defensive stance militarily in the Netherlands.