SOLEBAY
The night was fine but cold; the stars had a hard brilliance and
flashed like facets of steel in the cloudless sky.
A man was thoughtfully pacing the deck of a great ship.
Now and again he looked shrewdly up at these stars. A strong but
moderate wind was filling the sails and the ship was steering rapidly
through the darkness towards the east coast of England.
There was a pleasant whistling in the cordage, and a pleasant, steady
swish of the water to right and left as the bows cut through the
darkened sea.
When the man turned his back to them he could see great lights dotted
irregularly over the black surface of the ocean.
These were the lanterns hanging at the masts of the fleet, silently and
closely following its leader.
When he turned again and came under the sparse rays of one of his own
lamps, that was fastened a man’s height on the mast, he was shown to
be a stout, short gentleman with a ruddy face and thick brown hair,
very splendidly dressed in scarlet velvet trimmed with gold braid, and
wearing a heavy sword in his fringed baldric and a handsome pistol in
his belt.
His wide boots were turned over with crimson leather flaps, and on his
right shoulder was a bunch of black ribbons.
He carried his red plumed hat under his arm and walked with a slightly
swaggering gait.
Pausing for a moment under the lantern he drew out his watch.
Two o’clock.
As he was passing on again a sailor came noiselessly across the deck.
“Mynheer the Admiral, Mynheer Cornelius de Witt would like to speak to
you.”
“Very well,” said de Ruyter, with a little nod, “very well.”
The man disappeared into the darkness of the ship.
Michael de Ruyter looked again at the stars, at the lights of his
ships, and then went below humming a song in a hoarse, guttural voice.
He found Cornelius de Witt alone in his cabin, seated before a table
scattered with papers.
A silver oil-lamp hung by a chain from the ceiling and showed the plain
furnishings, which served as a background to the splendid figure of the
Ruard.
His strong and handsome features were stern and frowning; the full
under-lip and prominent chin, that gave his face its great likeness
to his brother’s more delicate countenance, were set grimly in his
effort to control the pain of the rheumatism that tortured him. Dressed
with the magnificence that befitted the dignity of the States, whose
sole representative he was with the Fleet, he wore a grey velvet
suit embroidered in silver, and a cravat of Mechlin lace tied with a
flame-coloured ribbon.
On the wall beside him hung his sword, that swung with the swaying of
the ship; on a chest beneath were a couple of richly mounted pistols
and a few books and maps.
Admiral de Ruyter paused inside the door, standing with his feet far
apart after the fashion of a man accustomed to pitching seas.
“Ah!” said the Ruard, looking up. “Is the wind still favourable?”
“It is,” answered Michael de Ruyter. “And unless it falls we shall make
the coast of England before morning.”
“You do not think they will escape this time?”
“By God’s help, no.”
The Admiral seated himself on the chest inside the door and looked down
at the great crimson rosettes on his boots.
The lamp threw his shadow behind him, bringing into relief his
deep-coloured, seamed, and blunt-featured face, that was rendered
attractive by the composed, lofty expression and the bright,
intelligent black eyes.
“I think we shall meet them at last,” he added, with an air of
satisfaction.
A week ago Cornelius de Witt had obtained the consent of the States
General to his earnest desire for an engagement, and since then the
Dutch Fleet had been cruising in search of the combined fleets of
France and England, whose junction at Portsmouth they had been unable
to prevent.
A bold fishing-boat had brought them news that the enemy was at anchor
on the east coast between Harwich and Yarmouth, and silently through
the June night the ships of the United Provinces, crowding all canvas,
bore forward to battle.
Cornelius de Witt put up his letters, one to his brother and one to his
wife.
“I hope to add good news to them--to-morrow,” he said, smiling at de
Ruyter.
The Admiral pulled at his moustache.
“I have to ask your permission before I attack, you know, Mynheer,” he
said affectionately. “You have the authority--and the responsibility.”
“You know my opinion,” was the answer; “nothing but an engagement can
save us--I would we were at work on it now--John agrees with me.”
“I would like to know how things go on land,” said de Ruyter.
A shade passed over the face of Cornelius de Witt.
“Almost I fear to know--with everything trusted to that boy.”
Michael de Ruyter nodded sombrely.
“At twenty-one!”
“His years are the least I have against him.”
“You do not trust him?”
“No.”
“Nor I.”
A stern silence fell.
The Ruard was the first to speak--
“We have our own affairs to think of … very much lies with us.”
The swinging sword made a soft sound against the smooth wall and the
lamp swayed on its chain as the great vessel pitched.
“I mean to try a surprise,” said Michael de Ruyter.
“That is what I wanted to see you about--you think we can?”
“If the wind does not forsake us.”
“They will be unprepared.”
“’Tis likely.”
“Ay--they can scarce be expecting an attack.”
The Ruard’s brown eyes flashed.
“To-morrow is King Charles’ birthday,” answered the Admiral; “the
English at least will be engaged in celebrating it … we have every
chance.”
Cornelius de Witt clasped his hands on the table before him.
“If one life could secure the victory----”
Michael de Ruyter looked up.
“I should be very glad to die to-morrow could I see the English sails
scatter as I saw them once scatter before us--at Chatham … and I think
I shall … God have mercy on me if I boast.”
“We must have victory,” said Cornelius de Witt passionately; “there is
no ‘if,’ de Ruyter, we must have victory to-morrow.”
“It is quite certain,” said de Ruyter simply, “that if we do not make a
descent on England they will make a descent on the coast of Zeeland.”
He put his hands squarely on his knees and fixed his bright eyes on the
representative of the States.
“How many sail do you make them?” asked the Ruard.
Michael de Ruyter checked them off on his stout fingers.
“The English, sixty-five ships of war, sixteen fire-ships, three or
four thousand guns, and twenty-two or so thousand men … the French not
more than sixty-seven sail, all included, not more than ten thousand
men … that is the uttermost they can be if their entire force has
combined.”
Cornelius de Witt was silent. The Fleet of the United Provinces was
a hundred and thirty-three sail, including the galiots; they did not
carry quite five thousand guns; the men, including five thousand
marines, did not exceed twenty-five thousand.
The Ruard cast up these odds. The Admiral seemed to detect some anxiety
in his thoughtful face.
“We are in God’s hands, Mynheer de Witt, and I cannot think it is His
will to forsake us utterly.”
Cornelius de Witt made a movement as if to get on his feet. But he
could not rise for his crippled limbs, and the momentary effort brought
the drops of anguish to his forehead.
“You battle with a sharper foe than the English,” said Admiral de
Ruyter, with a little frown of sympathy. “Madame de Witt would say you
should be in bed.”
The Ruard leant forward, supporting himself on the table.
“I am not so ill,” he answered, forcing a smile to his pale lips, “that
I cannot go on deck to-morrow----”
“Nay, you cannot walk.”
“Well, I can be carried----”
“A deputy can take your orders----”
“The Representative of the States General cannot remain in his cabin
when the Fleet is in action,” replied Cornelius de Witt proudly. “I
will go on deck at daybreak.”
Michael de Ruyter said no more. Each in silence, and after his own
fashion, had dedicated his life to his country.
The light of the swinging lamp shone in the bravery of velvets, gold
buttons and braid, the trappings of swords and pistols, and on the
calm, resolute faces of the two men who were being borne swiftly on to
battle.
De Ruyter rose and opened the porthole.
The expanse of water, almost on a level with his eye, was beginning to
glimmer with a greyish tinge.
As the ship dipped to her side the heavy spray splashed in on to the
cabin floor.
De Ruyter shut it out.
“The dawn,” he said.
He shook hands with Cornelius. They looked into each other’s eyes, and
without a word from either de Ruyter went up on the deck.
The sea was changing to a silver colour beneath the clear sky of a June
dawn, the stars were faintly sparkling through a veil of fast rising
mist, the colour of lilac flowers, that lay over the horizon.
Before the flagship lay the stretch of rippling waters and the
indefinite, distant line of land; behind her, and to right and left,
was the Fleet of the United Provinces, crowding all sail under a
pressure of wind and blocking the sky with the straining canvas, the
dark masts, and the flags bearing the lions of the Republic.
At many of the bulkheads the lamps still burnt with a pale and useless
glare; but as the day strengthened these were extinguished silently
like the last stars in the brightening heavens.
_The Seven Provinces_ continued to lead. At four o’clock she sighted
the enemy, lying at anchor off the coast of England.
By the maps it appeared that they were nearing Solebay, midway between
Yarmouth and Harwich.
De Ruyter sent off boats to summon the principal officers of the Fleet
on board his ship, and went himself to tell Cornelius de Witt that the
enemy was in view.
Thereupon the Ruard was carried on deck in a chair bearing the arms
of the Republic, and placed by the mast in the position of honour and
danger.
Out of the hundred men appointed by the States General to attend him,
twelve halberdiers were selected now to form a guard.
Armed on back and breast, they took their places about his chair, and
the early sun glittered in their steel appointments.
The Ruard was bareheaded; his bandaged legs rested on a velvet
footstool; his sword lay across his knee, and his pistols were in his
belt.
In his right hand he held a Bible with gold clasps.
The strong, fresh wind blew his hair across his brow and fluttered the
scarlet ribbon that fastened his cravat.
Shielding his eyes with his hand from the glare of sun and water, he
fixed his narrowed gaze on the barely visible line of the enemy.
De Ruyter was pacing to and fro with his straddling gait, his hands
clasped behind him, and his keen eyes following the movements of the
bare-footed sailors who were clearing the decks.
At five o’clock, when the water, under the slackening wind, had
subsided to faint ripples that the sun, freed from the obscuring mist,
gilded with dazzling light, the captains and principal officers of the
Fleet came aboard _The Seven Provinces_.
Among them were many noble volunteers of the finest families of the
kingdom, who had placed their services and their fortunes at the
disposal of the country.
Michael de Ruyter, the son of the Zeeland brewer’s man, received them
with simple courtesy.
They shook hands with him, and then with the Ruard, near whose chair he
stood.
Every detail of the beautiful ship, and of the magnificently dressed
men who stood gathered about her mast, shining gold and silver,
velvets, satin, sword-hilts and pistols, eager faces, and bare yellow
or brown heads (for they were all uncovered out of respect to Mynheer
Cornelius de Witt), was sparkling visibly in the gay sunshine.
Admiral de Ruyter set his feet far apart, and again clasped his
gauntleted hands behind him.
“Gentlemen of my fleet,” he said, and his quick eyes roved along the
line of faces, “we are in the presence of the enemy. It is my intention
to give battle. I feel that your courage and your devotion are equal to
the difficulty and importance of your task.
“We have to face greater numbers, but on our side is justice, and with
God’s help we shall not fail.
“The safety of the Country, the liberty of the United Provinces, the
fortunes and the lives of their inhabitants depend upon this battle,
and only your valour can secure the Republic against the unjust
violence of the two kings who attack her.”
His pointed moustache seemed to bristle, and there was a fierce,
steel-like gleam in his narrowed eyes.
“Well,” he added, with a little nod, “get to your work … and ask the
Lord God, in His mercy, to help us … if such be His will.”
Cornelius de Witt lifted his noble face.
“What can I add?--your own good courage will direct you--God have you
in His keeping, gentlemen.”
They bent their heads.
Captain Engel de Ruyter spoke--
“If the enemy were twice as strong, we should have faith, Mynheer,
in the justice of our cause, since we fight for liberty and they for
glory.”
The Ruard and the Admiral shook hands with them all a second time, and
they returned to their ships; silent and seemingly unmoved, as was the
habit of their nation.
With all speed possible the Fleet of the United Provinces was beating
to windwards, but the strong breeze had dropped, and de Ruyter no
longer hoped for a surprise.
The enemy had already seen them, and were hastily arranging themselves
for battle. So utterly unprepared were they that in the confusion many
of the English ships had to cut their cables to place themselves in
line.
De Ruyter, on the forecastle, saw this, and his lips stiffened. The
superiority of the enemy sent a thrill of pleasurable excitement
through his veins.
He was a just and honourable man, well fitted to serve under John
de Witt, and all his indomitable energies were roused by the wanton
aggression of the King of England. Had he not commenced attack like
a pirate by attempting to capture the India fleet before war was
declared, and, in violation of the treaty between England and the
United Provinces, by seizing all the Dutch merchant-ships in English
ports?
John de Witt had disdained to revenge himself for this perfidy, as he
had disdained to answer Charles’ frivolous pretexts for war, and every
English vessel had gone free according to the agreement the United
Provinces were too proud to break.
It was an example of the different spirit animating the two
Governments. The Dutch were upheld by every noble feeling patriotism
may call forth; they fought for the finest of motives, for the most
glorious of ends: the English, ashamed of their leaders, hating the
alliance with the French, whose cats’-paws they suspected themselves to
be, sullen at the unworthy part they felt themselves to be filling, had
no motive to acquit themselves well save mere desire for reprisals on a
country that had already once beaten them off the sea.
Michael de Ruyter was alive to this difference of spirit in the two
forces about to meet.
Calling his men on to the quarter-deck, he pressed their advantage,
warmly exhorting every one to do his best in a noble cause, and
assuring them, out of the depth of his own strong, simple faith, of
God’s help in their utmost endeavours.
The men, devoted to their Admiral and the finest seamen in the world,
responded with a cheerful enthusiasm that was the outward expression of
undaunted purpose and courage.
Each went to his place; the swivel guns on the top of the forecastle
and quarter-deck bulwarks were swung to front the enemy; the eager,
half-nude gunners knelt before the long guns on the main and
quarter-decks and below the smooth muzzles pointed from the portholes.
The standard of the Republic floated stiffly out from the mainmast of
_The Seven Provinces_, vivid in the sunshine.
Cornelius de Witt raised his eyes to it and murmured a prayer.
The hammocks were lashed to the nettings, and behind them the marines,
with their muskets in their hands, took up their position.
By now the wanton English breeze had changed again and a high sea was
running. De Ruyter gave the order to reef in topsails.
They were almost within range of the Allied Fleet, who had now drawn
themselves up into line of battle, divided into three squadrons: two
English, the first of the Red, commanded by the Lord High Admiral of
England, James of York, the King’s brother; the second, called the
Blue, by Vice-Admiral the Earl of Sandwich.
The third squadron, the White, comprised the French ships under the
Count D’Estrées, Vice-Admiral of France; his second in command,
Lieutenant Admiral Duquesne.
De Ruyter also arranged his forces into three; Lieutenant Admiral
Banckert advanced towards the French ships on the left, and Lieutenant
Admiral Van Ghent was opposed to the Earl of Sandwich on the right wing.
De Ruyter, seconded by Lieutenant Admiral Van Nes, took the central
position facing the Duke of York’s division, commanded by James himself
on his flagship _The Royal Prince_.
The Dutch Fleet shortened sail; the useless canvas was furled. De
Ruyter gave the signal for battle, and the colours of the United
Provinces ran up on every yardarm. From the Duke’s flagship floated
the royal red standard of England, and from the great vessel that had
D’Estrées on board the Bourbon blue with the yet unconquered lilies
semé on the azure ground.
Michael de Ruyter walked up to his pilot Zegen.
It was then nearly eight o’clock of a beautiful June day; not a cloud
visible, and the deep green water curling into foam about the bows of
the advancing vessels.
Above the cordage flew circling sea-birds, the sunlight on their wings
and breasts.
De Ruyter pointed out _The Royal Prince_ to the pilot.
“Zegen,” he said in his quiet voice, “that is our man.”
The pilot lifted his cap.
“Admiral,” he said calmly, “you shall have him.”
And he steered _The Seven Provinces_ straight for the Duke of York’s
flagship.
There was a moment’s pause, of heightened calm it seemed, during which
was no sound save the harsh scream of a seagull and the splash of the
waves curling over one another.
Then the guns leapt into a roar.
A furious broadside came from the 18-pounders of _The Seven Provinces_;
the shots tore the water into foam and buried themselves in the side of
_The Royal Prince_, who returned an instant cannonade.
A thick smoke, a heavy dun in colour, at once wrapped both vessels; to
the right rang a second roar as Van Ghent engaged Lord Sandwich, and to
the left the answering boom of the French cannon.
The two flagships were now close-hauled, and the Dutch opened a hot
fire of musketry from behind their hammocks. Theirs being the higher
vessel, they were able to inflict on the English a galling volley of
small shot that raked their exposed decks.
Aware of this disadvantage, _The Royal Prince_ tried to get out of
her opponent’s reach, but the light wind would not serve her, and de
Ruyter brought about a collision, driving the port bow of _The Seven
Provinces_ into the enemy’s starboard side.
The English marines on the poop commenced a steady fire of musketry,
but the Dutch 36-pounders tore a hole in their enemy’s close-pressed
side and the deck guns crippled her masts.
The smoke was already so thick that the sky was entirely obscured; the
stifling vapour was rent across by the flashes of fire from the guns
and the fresh spurts of white smoke that followed each shot.
The roar of the great cannon below was incessant; splinters flew from
each ship, and the planks of the Dutch vessel became so heated with her
own cannonade that seamen had to stand ready with buckets of water to
extinguish the flames.
As the enemy was so close in their embrace the Dutch from the nettings
kept up a continuous fire that picked off numbers of the English crew,
while the swivel guns on the forecastle heavily raked the enemy’s masts
and rigging.
Michael de Ruyter, walking up and down the upper deck giving his
orders, stopped beside the chair of Cornelius de Witt.
The air was foul with the smell of powder, and they could hardly hear
each other for the thunder of the guns.
“How long will she hold out, Admiral?” asked the Ruard.
“I think she will be badly beaten in a very little while,” answered de
Ruyter, with his thumbs in his embroidered sash.
The musketry fire was playing round Cornelius de Witt, but he did not
even seem to notice it. A ball had buried itself in the deck a few
inches from the stool where his bandaged feet rested; two of his guards
had already fallen, been carried to the rails by the silent survivors
and flung overboard.
Blood began to appear everywhere; on the smooth planks, on the gay
clothes of the officers, on the naked, glistening bodies of the gunners.
Several of the marines lay heavily over useless muskets in the
nettings, their bodies jerking helplessly with the swaying of the ship.
On the lower deck others remained where they had fallen, mostly on
their faces, with the red stain spreading underneath them.
A gentle breeze rose and drove off _The Royal Prince_ after nearly an
hour of furious firing.
The English ship had suffered severely; her spars had gone; her sides
were driven in, her foremast and fore-topmast had been shot away, and
many of her guns were dismounted.
De Ruyter had lost only his mizzen-topmast and one of the lower yards,
and of his crew comparatively few; but the dead could be seen piled
high on the English ship.
Encouraged by the sight of the enemy, the Dutch turned on her another
fierce cannonade that swept off her mizzen-mast and battered her hulls.
This time the English guns did not answer, and a low murmur of triumph
went up from _The Seven Provinces_.
Her cannon impeded by her own falling spars, half the gunners
down--dead and dying entangled in the rigging that lay along the deck,
_The Royal Prince_ was utterly unmanageable; her pilot could do nothing
with her, she lay helpless, a tattered shape looming through the heavy
smoke.
Her mainmast still stood, and there the red standard of England,
riddled with shot, floated above the battle.
It was now nine o’clock. De Ruyter gave orders for another broadside.
It was replied to by a feeble volley from the English ship, now
pitching uselessly; the mainmast swayed, then crashed down, dragging
the cordage and remaining canvas with it. Smoke began to belch through
her portholes, and to complete her distress one of the 12-pounders blew
up, killing several of the crew and firing the side.
“She is finished,” said de Ruyter, standing behind his pilot; and as
the Royal Standard fell the hoarse shouts of victory rose from the
decks of _The Seven Provinces_.
_The Royal Prince_ tried now to withdraw, but was prevented by the
other vessels of de Ruyter’s squadron; they closed round her and sent
out fire-ships to complete her destruction.
The sea was scattered with wreckage, and stained with trails of blood
and flecks of foam; the curtain of smoke concealed the rest of the
battle, but the continuous sound of the guns and the splashes of flame
in the darkness testified to its fierceness.
Michael de Ruyter, on the forecastle, saw a boat put out from _The
Royal Prince_ and struggle through the dipping bullets that lashed the
water into spray; it lay-to at one of the portholes, and a man in a
blue coat stepped out and took his place in the stern sheet.
He carried the standard that had just been disentangled from the bloody
deck.
“It is the Duke of York,” said Admiral de Ruyter, narrowing his keen
eyes. “Steer away from _The Royal Prince_, Zegen, for they have
abandoned the flagship!”
The little Dutch galiots ran out, crowding all canvas, and trying
to reach the cock-boat in which the Lord High Admiral of England was
conveying his flag across the firing line.
They could see the English sailors straining at the oars, and the
Prince himself ducking under the bullets, one of which flattened itself
against the bows of his boat.
The utter calm delayed the fire-ships; the English boat escaped into
the smoke, and about half-past nine, with a blare of trumpets, the
English flag was rehoisted aboard _The Saint Michael_.
_The Royal Prince_, on fire in three places, an abandoned and drifting
wreck, collided with one of her own galiots, and instant flames
involved them both in a common doom. Such as remained of her crew threw
themselves into the sea, clinging desperately to broken spars and
planks, while the pale fire leapt, hissing, to the height of her fallen
mast, and stained the sombre smoke with sparks and flying fragments as
gun after gun, and cask after cask of gunpowder, exploded at the touch
of the flames.
_The Seven Provinces_ steered off from the floating mischief, and
silencing with a sweep of her guns the circle of English fire-ships
that surrounded her, went for _The Saint Michael_.
An officer came on board from Captain Engel de Ruyter’s ship to say
that the captain was disabled by a dangerous wound, and the vessel
sinking with six holes in her side; being beset with the enemy’s
fire-ships.
“Keep the flag flying,” said de Ruyter, and turned his course to his
son’s assistance.
Van Nes having, after a fierce fight, lost one of his ships, and being
forced to retreat with his hull cut to pieces and nothing standing but
the mainmast and the shattered remains of the bowsprit, had patched
his vessel together, and returning to the fight seconded de Ruyter
in an attack on _The Royal Catherine_, a ship of eighty guns that
was menacing Engel de Ruyter. A Dutch fire-ship was dispatched and a
broadside fired full into the hulls of _The Royal Catherine_, whose
jib-boom and wheel were at the same time shot away by a discharge from
_The Seven Provinces_.
Her deck guns were now abandoned, a fierce fusillade from the starboard
guns was directed into the bows of the English vessel, and the two
ships crashed together, starboard to starboard.
The Dutch attempted to board, and a desperate hand-to-hand fight
between the two decks ensued; Van Nes leading his men with cutlass and
pistol, and Captain John Chicheley, of _The Royal Catherine_, fiercely
urging his crew forward.
_The Seven Provinces_, holding off a little, sent a volley into the
English ship that blew the bottom out of her and ended the struggle.
Engel de Ruyter’s rescued ship withdrew from the firing line for
repairs, and _The Royal Catherine_, fast sinking, surrendered to Van
Nes, who received her crew as prisoners and took possession.
De Ruyter again turned his attention to _The Saint Michael_, she the
while keeping up a murderous cannonade on the frigates opposed by the
Dutch.
The sharp, short rattle of musketry was heard above the steady roar
of the great guns, and little threads of flame and puffs of white
smoke sprang out and vanished against the curtain of yellow fog as the
marines on board _The Seven Provinces_, under cover of the nets, picked
off the sailors in the rigging of _The Saint Michael_.
Two other high Dutch vessels, looming up out of the noise and darkness
of battle, silenced the starboard guns of the English flagship with a
close-range volley; her poop was swept bare with a cannonade from de
Ruyter, and her disabled rigging and rent canvas swayed through the
smoke that belched on her from all sides.
For the second time the English standard fell.
De Ruyter strove to press his advantage, and sent out two frigates to
sink or burn _The Saint Michael_; but her pilot and captain brilliantly
managed the wounded vessel, and, wreck as she was, steered her out of
the line of battle.
Again the Duke of York was forced to abandon his ship; again he was
rowed through the wreckage, the seething, stained sea, and the ragged
flag was hoisted on _The London_.
De Ruyter, having vanquished those ships immediately in duel with him,
turned his attention to the other parts of the battle.
The French Fleet, beaten in a first engagement, and wishing to leave
the brunt of the battle to their allies, had withdrawn towards the
south, hotly pursued by Van Banckert, whose distant guns could be heard
in the lulls of the nearer firing.
Van Ghent had begun the fight on the left wing with a fury that had
brought the Squadron of the Blue to retreat in confusion and terror;
but as de Ruyter was fighting his way through a circle of fire-ships to
second him, a young lieutenant came up in a little galiot and announced
to Cornelius de Witt that Admiral Van Ghent was dead. In the midst of
his victorious onset he had been killed by a cannon-ball.
A captain of marines was with the lieutenant; he had his arm in a sling
and a mark of blood across his face.
“Conceal Van Ghent’s death,” said the Ruard. “Keep his flag flying and
return to the fight--the day goes well for us.”
A ball had carried away one arm of his chair; three more of his guards
had fallen, and the deck was smeared with blood and burnt with powder
to his very feet; behind him, leaning against the mast, a dying boy sat
staring at a fingerless hand he held across his up-drawn knees.
The sea was rising and the ship began to toss, pitching the dead to and
fro on the slippery decks. De Ruyter stood beside the Ruard’s chair,
his feet far apart, and gave directions in a firm voice.
The captain, advancing for instructions, had his arm shattered by a
shot that splintered the mast; he went below to the dark cabin where
the surgeon was at work, and returned to take his orders with an empty
sleeve pinned across his breast.
_The London_ opened an obstinate fire, and de Ruyter answered, leaving
the left wing to manage the Squadron of the Blue.
They, not receiving the expected signal from Van Ghent’s ship,
had given the English time to recover from the first shock of the
onslaught; the Earl of Sandwich, on board _The Royal James_, his
flagship, rallied his force and advanced in order of battle.
It was now past midday, and though the advantage had been so far with
the Dutch the English gave no signs of yielding.
De Ruyter signalled to Vice-Admiral Sweers to take over the command of
the left division, and make a decisive attack on the Blue.
But there was one Dutchman who waited for no signal; Captain Van
Brakel of _The City of Groningen_, the hero of the victory of Chatham.
Ardently desirous further to distinguish himself, he conceived the
boldly audacious scheme of capturing or destroying _The Royal James_
himself.
Defying all discipline, he left, without orders, de Ruyter’s squadron,
to which he belonged, and advanced to _The Royal James_ across the
black pool of waters the battle enclosed. The exploit was daring to
recklessness, for the English ship carried 102 guns and 900 men, while
his little vessel was only armed with 70 guns and 300 men.
An angry broadside from the great ship met her rash foe; Captain Van
Brakel approached without replying.
_The Royal James_, alarmed at this manœuvre, spread her topsails and
tried to sheer off; but Van Brakel was too quick. He hauled his wind,
drew up alongside the English, threw out his grappling irons and seized
her, while his quarter-deck guns blew away her cordage and rigging.
Despite _The Royal James’_ desperate efforts the two ships remained
locked together. There was a rush of Dutch to the sides, an answering
charge on the part of the English, and the crews mingled in a fierce
hand-to-hand fight with muskets, pistols, swords, and even sticks and
fragments of iron.
Van Brakel, regardless of a broken collar-bone and a cut on his
forehead that blinded him, led his men himself.
The sheer Anglo-Saxon genius for fighting rose in the English; let
their cause be good or bad they could not have fought more fiercely.
The Earl of Sandwich, with a broken sword in his hand, and panting a
little by reason of his stoutness, ran up with his officers.
“Don’t let the damned Dutchmen board!” he shouted, and a yell of fury
rose to answer him.
The Netherlanders, silent but equally in earnest, pressed over the
bodies of their comrades and closed with the English on the deck of
their own ship, clinging to the rails, the grappling irons, even to the
guns, some of which many succeeded in ramming under the very eyes of
the gunners.
Meanwhile their own cannon kept up a steady fire; the Dutch gunners
remaining at their places in face of a cruel discharge from the deck
guns of _The Royal James_.
Man after man fell as he was putting the match to the powder and lay
silently gasping his life out; but there was never lack of another to
take his place. The dwindling crew moved forward as the gaps occurred,
and _The City of Groningen’s_ guns were never silent.
_The Royal James_ was suffering severely; her masts were tottering, her
sails hanging in ribbons. All Lord Sandwich’s efforts were directed to
a frantic attempt to disengage her; but still the little Dutch vessel
clung to her side, still the guns poured their fire into her with
unabated vigour.
At half-past one, after the duel had lasted an hour and a half,
the English masts went overboard on the disengaged side, dragging
the Admiral’s flag into the sea. The guns on the forecastle and
quarter-deck were put out of action by the fallen canvas, the
mizzen-topsail going over the portholes and becoming involved with the
Dutch grappling irons.
_The City of Groningen_ had done enough; battered, half her crew dead,
and all her officers wounded, she changed her tactics and withdrew,
cutting her chains, and signalled up her fire-ships.
_The Royal James_ was in no condition to resist another onslaught; not
a mast standing, her jib-boom and wheel shot away, her decks piled with
dead and wreckage, many of her guns silenced, she lay a huge, useless
hulk.
But the Earl of Sandwich was still aboard her and from her bows still
floated the English flag.
Vice-Admiral Sweers hastened up to the aid of the heroic Van Brakel,
under the cover of whose guns the fire-ships were advancing.
But Lord Sandwich opened a last desperate cannonade; one fire-ship was
sunk, the other driven back on _The City of Groningen_. Van Brakel,
wounded three times, but with his rash valour utterly unquenched, again
brought his disabled ship forward, urging on the fire-ship, which was
commanded by Van Ryn, the captain who had burnt _The Rochester_ at
Chatham.
Lord Sandwich could no longer save himself. Protected by the Dutch
guns, Van Ryn advanced right under the bows of _The Royal James_, and
succeeded in firing the canvas that hung over her portholes, retreating
uninjured.
The flames seemed to crouch and hesitate for a moment, then leapt
fiercely on to the piled-up wreckage of rigging and cordage.
_The City of Groningen_ steered off her dangerous foe, and the gallant
little fire-ship hastened from the reach of the ruin she had caused.
There was no hope for _The Royal James_.
Cries of angry despair rose from the English as they saw themselves
abandoned in flaming isolation, and they might be seen rushing to the
boats and endeavouring, under the captain’s orders, to flood the powder
magazine. The flames twisted over the quarter-deck, feeding greedily on
the broken masts, the tattered canvas, and the oaken planks.
“Lord Sandwich’s flagship is burning!”
As the news spread the very battle seemed hushed to watch the death
agony of the great vessel.
Van Brakel, lying wounded on his deck, gave orders for the firing to
cease, and bade his crew save such of the English as they could. But
their boats had been shot to splinters; they could do nothing.
Vice-Admiral Sweers sent a pinnace to the rescue, but it made slow
progress through the clogged and swelling sea.
Meanwhile the fire was encroaching over every portion of _The Royal
James_. The soldiers and sailors began to hurl themselves into the sea.
It was but a choice of deaths; most were instantly drowned in the waves
their flaming ship stained with a crimson reflection.
One after another the red-hot guns exploded with a blaze of white
flame, and from every porthole issued dark, slow smoke from the wet
powder.
The Dutch threw out ropes and broken spars to the few desperate
survivors who swam towards them. The captain, bitterly wounded, and a
young lieutenant, were hauled on board _The City of Groningen_; the
first fainted as he reached the enemy’s deck, and the other, flinging
back his wet hair, gazed at his burning ship.
“Where is my lord?” he asked. “Where is the Admiral?”
A crowded boat put out from _The Royal James_, and the Dutch pinnace
tried to reach it; but numbers of drowning wretches striving
frantically to cling to its sides, it became waterlogged and sank under
the rescuers’ gaze.
Then those who watched with straining eyes saw the Vice-Admiral of
England, in his courtier’s dress, advance out of the smoke and mount up
to the untouched portion of the ship where the flag still floated; Lord
Montague, his son, was with him. The English knew him by his gold coat
and scarlet sash; he had his useless sword in his hand, and set his
back against the flagstaff, facing the advancing flames.
A heavy swell troubled the sea; _The Royal James_ swung about as if she
writhed, and the flames swept windward, blowing over the battle like an
enormous banner of a vivid, transparent whiteness, edged with leaping
tongues of crimson that licked into the smoky background.
The crew of _The City of Groningen_ could see the Earl of Sandwich
calmly placed beside his flag; could see his son drop his sword and put
his hand over his eyes.
The fire darted on with a sinister roar; it was the last seen of
my Lord Sandwich.… The ship was burning to the water’s edge; the
hull dipped as if the tortured vessel strove to quench her agony in
the bloodstained waves; the English flag fluttered a moment, then
disappeared in fire.
The powder being wet there was no explosion; she burnt slowly,
pitilessly, to ashes, till at length the flames rose sheer from the sea
and sank reluctantly to nothingness above their annihilated prey.
At the end of an hour the waves had closed over the fragments of _The
Royal James_, and the fire hissed sullenly along floating planks and
overturned boats.
“I would I could have saved my lord Admiral,” said Captain Van Brakel.
“He did not choose to be saved,” answered the lieutenant fiercely.
It was now seven o’clock, and all heart had left the English; the
terrific end of the Earl of Sandwich had utterly daunted the Squadron
of the Blue.
The Duke of York alone still kept up an obstinate fight, and, aided
by a veering wind, strove to drive his fire-ships against _The Seven
Provinces_.
De Ruyter, abandoned by the daring Van Brakel, and separated from his
second in command, Van Nes, having no vessels with him but a yacht and
a frigate, was for a while hard pressed by the obstinate fire kept up
by _The London_ and the advance of the English fire-ships. His own
boats having been sunk he had nothing with which to ward off their
approach.
Michael de Ruyter saw himself in an ugly situation. For a moment it
seemed as if he was doomed to the same fate as Admiral the Earl of
Sandwich, and Cornelius de Witt was about to order the pumps to be
turned on the powder magazine when the little frigate, under the
command of the intrepid Captain Philip D’Almonde, resolved to sacrifice
herself to save the flagship.
Followed closely by the yacht, she advanced on the fire-ships. The
first ran into her bows and fired her; but the heroic efforts of
Captain D’Almonde extinguished the flames, and a sharp volley from his
guns set light to the powder the enemy carried, and she was borne off
helpless before the wind and pitched against _The London_, that had to
retreat before her.
The other fire-ship, seeing the fate of its companion, lost heart and
turned aside, held at bay by the yacht, whose crew raked it with a fire
of musketry.
_The Seven Provinces_ was saved. In the time gained by the action of
the frigate, Van Nes had forced his way through the squadrons of the
Red; and the ships surrounding de Ruyter, placed between two fires,
beat a hasty retreat.
Van Nes, having rescued the flagship, went to the aid of his brother,
Rear-Admiral John Van Nes, who was engaged with the remaining ships of
the Blue division.
The Duke of York, loath to give in, hastened to the assistance of the
English, and courageously continued to fight from his third battered
flagship.
But the English were dispirited and weary, and after three broadsides
from the advancing Dutch they dispersed in sullen confusion; falling
back, with tattered canvas and disabled rigging, on to their own coast.
Banckert, returning from his pursuit of the French, came up with
his fleet as evening fell, and his appearance changed the retreat
of the English into a flight; nightfall alone saved them from utter
destruction.
After twelve hours of fierce and desperate fighting the States General
had achieved a glorious victory.
They had destroyed five of the enemy’s finest vessels, including the
two flagships, disabled many others, and were themselves the worse only
by two frigates and some fire-ships.
The English had lost three thousand men, and a large number had been
taken prisoner.
“It is God’s will,” was all Michael de Ruyter said.
He stood beside the heroic Ruard’s chair; his hands clasped behind him,
his lips compressed under his pointed moustache.
Cornelius de Witt was very pale; he leant against the back of his
chair, and now and then wiped his lips and his brow. But though fatigue
and pain drove the colour from his face, nothing could subdue the fire
of his eye or the undaunted carriage of his head.
He had seen six of his guard fall beside him, and been all day exposed
to the hottest fire of the enemy. The Admiral’s ship had been always in
the fiercest part of the battle.
For twelve hours Cornelius de Witt had listened to the thunder of the
cannon and watched the smoke and flame arising from the struggle.
Now, in the hour of victory, he simply thanked God, and slipped his
sword into its scabbard.
The sailors were carrying the wounded below, throwing the dead
overboard, and washing the decks.
The stars came out, pale gold and luminous, and a gentle wind played
with the drooping canvas.
On a hundred ships the lanterns gleamed at mast and prow, and from a
hundred decks arose a service of thanksgiving.
“The Lord be praised!” said Cornelius de Witt.
The lieutenant who had escaped from _The Royal James_, and who had
been brought on board the flagship as a prisoner, was amazed at all
that he saw: at the discipline among the large, silent sailors, at
the dexterous fashion in which they cleaned the ship that had started
that morning fresh as a lady’s chamber, at their care of the wounded
and their respect to M. de Witt and de Ruyter, and, most of all, at
their gathering on the quarter-deck, where every man, even to the pilot
behind his shining brass rails, joined in a strong and lusty singing of
psalms that Michael de Ruyter selected from his leathern Prayer-book.
“They are an extraordinary people,” the Englishman wrote home. “M. de
Ruyter is everything in one--admiral, captain, pilot, sailor, soldier,
and preacher, too, it seems.…”
Now that the last shot had been fired, and the song of thanksgiving
sent up by all, no matter to which of the seven sects he belonged, and
the blue-eyed sailors were mending the sails and tarring the holes in
the boats, Cornelius de Witt was carried below, and before touching
food or drink added to the letter to his brother the news of the
victory.
He wrote briefly and modestly, and concluded with these words, written
with a hand shaking with sickness and fatigue--
“I am of opinion that we should begin again as soon as possible; I hope
God will grant us the strength necessary for continuing to the death to
do service to my dear country.”