THE LATTER HALF OF THE WAR
The only satisfactory account I have met of the sea fights of 1653 and
the transactions at Leghorn are given by the letters printed at length
in the Calendar of State Papers of the Interregnum for this year. It
is on them that this chapter is based, in addition to authorities
named above.
During the pause in hostilities between the end of February and the
end of May, the scene of operations of the two fleets was shifted from
the Channel to the North Sea. It was well understood on the English
side that the most effectual way of breaking the power of the Dutch
was to attack them on their own coast. Our headquarters were fixed
for the brief remains of the war at Yarmouth and Harwich. The violent
measure by which Cromwell ended for the time the existence of the Long
Parliament made no change in the conduct of the naval war. It was on
the 19th of April that he suddenly burst in on the eloquence of Sir
Henry Vane by declaring that there had been too much of this, put his
hat on, and ordered Colonel Harrison's regiment of musketeers to turn
the honourable members into the street. His action was accepted, and
had no doubt been foreseen, by the officers commanding the fleet, and
the men followed the lead of their superiors. At a meeting of naval
officers held on board the =Resolution= at Spithead on the 22nd of
April 1653, a general declaration of adhesion to Cromwell was drawn
up. It leaves no doubt that the fleet was at least prepared to accept
Cromwell as the effectual ruler of England. It was addressed to the
Council of Officers, and is as follows:--
"Gentlemen,--There being certain intelligence come to our hands of
the great changes within our nation, viz. the dissolution of this
parliament; we, the general, commanders, and officers here present
with this part of the fleet, have had a very serious consideration
thereof, as also what was our duty, and incumbent upon us in such
a juncture of time; and find it set upon our spirits, that we are
called and intrusted by this nation for the defence of the same
against the enemies thereof at sea, whether the people of the United
Provinces, or others. And we are resolved, in the strength of God,
unanimously to prosecute the same, according to the trust reposed in
us; and have thought good to signify the same unto you, desiring you
will take the effectualest course you can for the strengthening and
encouraging one another in this work; and doubt not but the Lord, who
hath done great and wonderful things for His people that have trusted
in Him, will also be found among us, His poor unworthy servants, if we
continue firm and constant in our duties, walking before Him in faith,
humility, and dependence; not seeking ourselves, but His glory; which
that we may all do, is the desire and prayer of your affectionate
friends and brethren."
This resolution was forwarded by Cromwell to the ships on other
stations, and was everywhere accepted. Blake, indeed, did not sign it,
for he was still confined on shore by his wound, but he continued to
serve as admiral and general at sea.
Towards the end of May active operations were resumed. In spite of the
losses suffered in February, the Dutch took the offensive. Their fleet,
estimated at over a hundred ships, appeared in the Downs, and attacked
the forts at Dover. On the day when the Dutch were insulting our coast
for the last time in this war, Monk and Deane were at Yarmouth with the
bulk of the English fleet. Eleven ships, very ill manned, were fitting
out in the Thames under the command of Blake, who had returned to
service, though still not cured of his wounds. It was known that Tromp
was at sea, but great doubt prevailed as to his movements. Transports
engaged in bringing stores from the Humber were warned to be on the
outlook lest they should meet the Lieutenant-Admiral of Holland in
the northern part of the German Ocean. Nimble vessels were despatched
in search of him in every direction. On the 28th of May, on the day
in which Tromp left the Downs for the north, the generals at sea were
informed of his attack on Dover. They at once weighed, and fell down
the coast to Southwold Bay. On the 31st of May they were at anchor off
Dunwich, where a few fragments of brickwork and a disused church now
mark the site of what was once one of the busiest trading towns on
the east coast of England. Here they were informed that Tromp's fleet
had been seen at the head of the Long Sand. The Long Sand is, with
the exception of the Kentish Knock, the farthest out of the belt of
shallows stretching from the mouth of the Thames to Orford Ness. Monk
and Deane immediately sailed in pursuit. On the 2nd of June they caught
sight of Tromp to leeward. During the 1st they had waited for Blake
to join them from the river with his eleven ships. This reinforcement
would have raised their fleet to a total strength of 126. But Blake
was not yet ready, and the weather was thick and hazy. On the 2nd it
cleared up, and the Dutch were seen to leeward. The English had the
wind, and immediately sailed for the purpose of attacking.
Tromp, conscious that he was outmatched in strength of ships and weight
of broadsides, adopted a plan of action which became habitual to the
French admirals of the next century. He accepted battle to leeward,
and retreated in a slanting direction, or, according to the sea phrase
of the seventeenth century, "lasking." As the English line came down
from windward, its van would naturally come into action before the
centre, or rear, were within striking distance of the enemy. This
would expose the leading ships of the attacking line to the fire of
a superior number of enemies, and there would be considerable danger
that they might suffer crippling damage. It was at this that the French
admirals habitually aimed, and the Dutch adopted this more timid
method of accepting battle when, as on the present occasion, they felt
overmatched. Its advantage lay in this, that, if several of the van
ships of the fleet acting on the offensive were severely damaged, the
total injury done might be sufficient to deter the admiral in command
from pressing his attack home. In later times, when English admirals
had become pedantically devoted to the maintenance of an orderly and
precise line, this conduct of the battle by the enemy to leeward did
avail, never indeed to win a victory, but frequently to avert a defeat.
As against the fiercer leadership of the seventeenth century it was not
equally successful.
On the 2nd of June the advancing English fleet forced the action
early in the afternoon. The Blue Division, under the command of John
Lawson, was in the van, and appears to have struck upon the enemy's
line in his van, under the command of Michael de Ruyter. The Dutch,
pursuing the evasive manner of fighting they had adopted from a sense
of weakness, flinched from the attack, and filed away to leeward,
firing high, to do the utmost possible amount of damage to the masts
and spars of the English. Tromp, indeed, bore up to support De Ruyter,
that is to say, lay close to the wind, so as to bring himself near the
English fleets, and within the range of effective fire. While the Blue
Division and a part only of the remainder of our fleet were engaged,
a shift of the wind altered the relative positions of the two fleets.
It turned to the east, and therefore gave the weather-gage to the
Dutch. The more distant centre and rear of the English fleet were thus
thrown to leeward of the Blue Squadron, now closely engaged with the
enemy. Tromp, as ready to attack where he had a reasonable prospect
of success, as he was skilful to retreat before a superior enemy,
immediately assumed the offensive, and endeavoured to throw the whole
weight of his fleet on the Blue Division. Lawson met the attack firmly,
while the Red and White Divisions worked to windward to his support.
Then the wind changed again, giving the weather-gage once more to the
English. The fleets were now so close together that the Dutch could
not, even if they wished to do so, avoid a general action. They resumed
their movement of retreat towards the coast of Flanders, but they bore
away almost yardarm to yardarm with the English. The battle did not
cease until nine at night, when the long daylight of early June came
to an end. If the claim made by the English officers was well founded,
their enemy suffered the loss of several vessels burnt or sunk. On our
side the loss of life was comparatively slight, but it included the
general-at-sea, Richard Deane, who sailed in the =Resolution= with
his colleague Monk. Deane fell cut in two by a cannon shot in the
first broadside fired by the Dutch at the =Resolution=. His blood was
splashed all over Monk, who saw the fall of his friend and colleague
with his usual imperturbable serenity. Fearing that the sight of
Deane's body, mangled almost beyond recognition, might dishearten the
men, and perhaps moved by a sense of decency, Monk took off his long
cloak and threw it over the corpse.
When night fell, both fleets were in sight of Dunkirk. The Dutch,
taking advantage of the shallow draught of their ships, ran close in
shore, where the deeper-keeled English vessels could not follow them.
The sound of the cannon had been heard by the ships under Blake's
immediate command in the estuary of the Thames. He was still ill, and
found himself growing daily worse, but he made an effort to aid his
brother generals-at-sea. On the morning of the 3rd he was clear of
the Thames, but the wind was very light, and the day was far advanced
before he could reach the scene of battle. The want of wind had in
the meantime suspended the action between the two fleets. It was not
until the afternoon that Monk, now in sole command, was again able to
bring the Dutch to battle. The second day's fight was less fiercely
contested than the first. The Dutch, convinced of their inferiority,
fought in retreat along the coast of Flanders, keeping as much as they
could in the shallow water, and heading for the protection of their own
harbours. Blake came up in time to take part in the end of the battle,
but he and Monk were unable to prevent Tromp from taking refuge in the
Weilings, the name we gave to the land-locked waters between the island
of Walcheren and the mainland.
The actual loss of the Dutch fleet was undoubtedly exaggerated in the
English reports, but, although we over-estimated the number of vessels
destroyed, there can be no doubt that the defeat of the Dutch had been
complete, and was of a kind to depress them greatly. It could not be
accounted for by accident or mere mismanagement, but was manifestly
due to the inferior quality of the fleet. This was fully recognised by
the brave and able men in command of the Dutch Navy. Tromp told the
States General that they must build better ships if they hoped to fight
the English successfully; while Cornelius de With, always an outspoken
man, declared that the English were masters of "us and of the sea."
The approaching ruin of their commerce and fisheries broke the spirit
of the United Provinces. The loss already suffered had been enormous.
Thousands of merchants were bankrupt. The fisheries were annihilated,
and the Zuyder Zee was crowded with merchant vessels unable to proceed
on their voyage from fear of the English fleets. In the meantime the
partisans of the House of Orange were stirring. The oligarchical
Government established after the death of William II. was threatened
by a most dangerous rebellion. Under pressure from abroad and at home,
it appealed for peace. The Protector insisted upon the full demands
that had been made by the Council of State. Much as the Dutch had
suffered, they were not prepared to submit so fully as this, and the
harsh insistence of England provoked a revival of national pride.
Declaring that it was better to die sword in hand than to submit to
the outrageous demands made upon them, the States General resolved to
attempt one last determined effort to regain the free use of the sea.
Every nerve was strained to equip a great fleet, and for the time all
commerce was suspended, in order the better to fit out a fighting force.
The English were no less resolute to maintain and, if possible, improve
their advantages. The fleet was not brought back from the coast of
Holland, but remained for the purpose of blockading the Dutch in their
own ports. Food and munitions of war were sent out from England to
Monk, who was again left in sole command by the illness of Blake, whose
strength broke down completely under the strain of active service. With
Penn as his second in command, and Lawson as his third, Monk was equal
to his duties. He may not have been a seaman, though by this time he
had been much at sea, but he was in the highest sense of the word a
general, a fighter, who did his work thoroughly, used the force of his
command to the utmost of its strength, and understood how to strike,
with a great compact mass, at the heart of his enemy. Towards the end
of July he stood across the North Sea for stores, and then returned at
once to his cruising-ground off the Texel, the island which prolongs
the State of North Holland, and between which and the mainland runs the
chief passage to the Zuyder Zee. Some thirty Dutch warships belonging
to the squadron of Amsterdam were at anchor behind the protection of
the land. Tromp, with eighty sail, was at Flushing, between Walcheren
and the mainland. The object of the Dutch admiral was to unite these
two divisions, and thereby raise his force to a slight superiority
over the English. Monk's aim was naturally to prevent the junction of
the enemy, and, if possible, to crush his divisions in detail while
they were endeavouring to unite. Thus the last battle of the war was
preceded by skilful manoeuvring. In the earlier movements success
was fairly won for his flag by the nerve and skill of Tromp. On the
26th of July some of his ships appeared to the south of the English
fleet, then riding outside the Texel. Monk started in pursuit on the
28th, and soon sighted the enemy. The wind was at W., and it was too
late for any extensive movement. On the 29th the Dutch were still in
sight to the south. As the English approached, they fell back. Monk
pressed on, with his lighter and better sailing ships in advance. These
vessels, the frigates of his fleet, directed their attack on the rear
of the Dutch line. Their better sailing powers enabled them to force
on an engagement, and so compelled Tromp to turn to the support of
the vessels attacked. But it was too late on the 29th for a decisive
engagement. At night both fleets anchored near Camperdown. The English,
who had in all probability aimed at getting the weather-gage, had
apparently stood farther out than Tromp, whose vessels were in any
case better able to approach the shore. Thus, when the fleets came to
an anchor, the Dutch were nearer in, and it would also seem that the
English had somewhat overshot the enemy, for they anchored a little
farther to the south. All through the night and the following day it
blew a gale with heavy squalls from the W.N.W. The wind was so high
that ships under way could scarcely bear their topsails, and, as they
were on a lee shore, the fleets had enough to do to keep off it,
without attacking one another. During the afternoon of the 30th the
Amsterdam squadron joined Tromp, raising his force to something over a
hundred and twenty vessels. So far he had effected his purpose, and had
shown himself worthy of his great reputation as a skilful captain. On
the morning of the 31st both fleets stood off the shore. The wind was
still at W.N.W., and Tromp had the weather-gage. The battle began very
early in the morning, and surpassed any of the previous engagements of
the war both in the fury of the contest and the decisive character of
the results. Monk was determined to bring the matter to an issue, and
he did not wait for Tromp to bear down upon him, but tacked upon his
enemy, and broke through the Dutch line from leeward.
It was six o'clock in the morning when the battle began. Both fleets
were heading to the W.S.W., the English somewhat ahead, the Dutch to
the northward and windward. By tacking, Monk altered the relative
positions of the fleets from parallel to intersecting lines. The bulk
of the Dutch weathered the head of the English line, but their rear
ships were cut off. We "went through their whole fleet," said Captain
Cubitt, "leaving part on one side, and part on the other of us." Tromp
was resolved not to lose the weather-gage, and he also tacked when he
saw Monk's movement. So did Monk when he had passed through the Dutch
line, and the manoeuvre was repeated three times by each. On the
second tack, all the Dutch appear to have weathered the English line.
The two fleets passed very close, engaging with the utmost fury. From
the heavy loss suffered in our ships, it may be concluded that in
this battle the Dutch fired less to dismast than to kill. Six English
captains were slain, one was mortally wounded, and the loss in the
lower ranks must have been in proportion. It was counted one of the
advantages of the windward position that it facilitated the despatch of
fireships against the enemy to leeward. The Dutch did not fail to use
a weapon, so terrible in theory, and so dreadfully destructive when it
took effect. Experience, however, proved that as against well-handled
ships under way, and under control of steady officers, it could rarely
be employed successfully. The fireship could generally be avoided
by moving vessels, and when that was difficult, or inconvenient to
do, then it was taken in charge by the boats which the warship towed
astern, and dragged away to leeward, where it burned out harmlessly. On
this occasion little hurt was done by the "branders."
We cannot suppose that the movement of tacking in succession was
performed by two fleets, each of over a hundred sail, with absolute
uniformity. On this occasion, as in the great battle of the 12th of
April 1783, when Rodney pierced the French from leeward, the main line
may have broken into smaller ones. But the general course of the battle
was in three great zig-zags, ranging along the coast of Holland, from
near Egmont towards the mouth of the Maas, which are at a distance of
about forty miles from one another. There was no shrinking on the part
of the Dutch, and no failure of effort on the part of the English to
push the attack home. In many points of the line ships were locked
together in desperate attempts to board, or repel boarders. By three in
the afternoon victory belonged to the English. A large proportion of
the Dutch had been cut off from Tromp, and had fallen to leeward. Most
of them were probably too damaged to be in case to do more than put
before the wind, and escape as best they could. They fled into Goree
and the Maas. The bulk of their fleet was debarred from that refuge
by the English, who were still to leeward, and therefore on the line
of retreat. It could only head northward and eastward to the Texel.
Thither in the afternoon it fled, leaving behind miles of sea covered
with the wreckage of the battle, and bearing with it the corpse of its
great admiral, who fell by the death he had come to long for--shot
mercifully dead by a musket bullet through the heart. He at least had
nothing to reproach himself with. All that valour and skill could do to
save Holland, he did. If he failed, it was because the mistaken policy
of the soldier princes of the House of Nassau, and the unwisdom of the
merchant oligarchy, had in false economy supplied him with inferior
ships. An Englishman does not undervalue the heroes of his own race,
when he acknowledges that not only their valour but skill enabled them
to overcome the most famous of the Dutch seamen.
We had no prizes, for we burned or sank the ships taken, and our own
damage in the battle had not been small, but the victory was decisive.
Holland again sued for peace; and as Cromwell had come to recognise
that he must not insist on too much, it was finally signed some months
later.
While the main tide of war had been ebbing and flowing through the
North Sea and the Channel, there had been minor conflicts at the entry
to the Baltic and the Mediterranean. The first is of comparatively
little importance in naval history, and is indeed hardly worth
mentioning, except on the ground that it illustrates a chronic
difficulty of the English Government in all naval wars. We drew a
great part of our stores from the Baltic. Pitch and tar, hemp for
cordage, and pine wood for spars and planking, as well as part of the
oak used in our ships, were supplied by Scandinavia and Russia. At a
later period the American plantations entered into competition with
the Baltic trade, but in the middle of the seventeenth century these
indispensable articles were obtained only in the North of Europe. If
they were cut off by the hostility of the Northern Powers, the task
of fitting a fleet for sea was rendered almost impossible. The sense
that they had it in their power to inflict so heavy a blow upon us,
rendered the kingdoms of the North occasionally somewhat exacting. In
the first Dutch war, the King of Denmark acted with open hostility to
the Commonwealth. He had strong political motives for remaining on
good terms with the United Provinces, and it is very possible that he
shared the common incredulity of Europe as to our power to overcome the
first naval power in the world. If the Dutch proved victorious, they
would certainly be obliged to him for any harm he might have done us.
Acting under the influence of a desire to please the Dutch, the King
of Denmark availed himself of a pretext to arrest an English convoy
at Elsinore in the autumn of 1652. A squadron of eighteen ships was
despatched under the command of Captain Ball to enforce their release.
Ball's force was scattered by a gale, and he was compelled to return
without the convoy. A long and angry negotiation followed between the
Governments, but the Danish king learned that it was more dangerous to
offend England than Holland, before we were compelled to teach him the
lesson directly.
The Mediterranean was the scene of a very much more lively and varied
fragment of the great war. It has been said above that when Penn left
the Mediterranean at the beginning of 1652 he was replaced by Captain
Richard Badiley, who was despatched into those seas with a squadron
appointed to protect the merchant ships against an attack by Prince
Rupert and the French. The main centres of English trade in the
Mediterranean were the Levant,--where the Turkey Company had factories
at Smyrna and Scanderoon (Alexandretta),--Venice, and Leghorn. When
the Dutch war broke out, there were six English warships in the
Mediterranean, stretching widely over it for the purpose of collecting
merchant ships at their different ports of departure, and bringing
them together into one convoy before passing the Straits on the way
home. Badiley himself was at Scanderoon with three ships. Captain Henry
Appleton was at Leghorn with two. The sixth, the =Constant Warwick=,
was at Genoa, where she had been sent to careen, because she was very
foul and eaten by worms. Appleton had several English ships with him,
and he would in the ordinary course of the service wait until he was
joined by Badiley before sailing for England. The outbreak of the war
with Holland entirely broke up the usual arrangement. The Dutch were
represented in the Mediterranean by a force numerically stronger than
ours, though the individual ships were smaller than our largest. This
advantage they were certain to use for the destruction of our trade.
The war began in June, and, as news travelled slowly then, was not
known, even in Italy, till the end of that month or the beginning of
the next. The Dutch ships in the western half of the Mediterranean
were collected in the neighbourhood of Appleton, at Leghorn. They were
fourteen in number, and were under the command of an officer named
Catz. With such a disproportion of force against him, the English
officer had no resource but to seek the protection of a neutral port.
Leghorn belonged to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and to him Appleton
appealed for protection. The Grand Duke was not very favourably
inclined towards the English officer, who had cost him considerable
annoyance by capturing a French vessel just outside his port and
bringing her in as a prize. The position of a neutral in a great naval
war is always more or less disagreeable. The combatants are generally
either anxious to make use of its harbours as a refuge, or eager to
follow up an enemy in its waters. The ingenuity of international
lawyers has invented many pretty and plausible regulations for the
guidance of all persons in such a case. But it is the misfortune of
international law that nobody is bound to enforce its decrees unless he
feels himself injured by the breach of them, while the party who really
is injured, and therefore quotes them on his own behalf, is frequently
the weaker, and so is unable to supply that sanction which is necessary
for the validity of any law. Between the stronger who wishes to crush
the weaker, and the weaker who does not wish to be crushed, the neutral
is often in a dilemma of great delicacy, since the weaker is often
quite strong enough to be able to punish him for inability to enforce
respect for his own neutrality. Besides, it is particularly hard to
judge from the local strength of belligerents which of them is likely
to prove the more powerful on the whole. When, then, Captain Appleton
brought the French prize into Leghorn, he caused the Grand Duke very
intelligible annoyance. The English might have the upper hand at sea,
and yet the French might be quite powerful enough by land to pay
themselves for what England had taken on the water, by pillaging the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany. A not dissimilar dilemma presented itself
when Appleton appealed to the protection of the port against the
fourteen ships of Catz. The Grand Duke could hardly tell which of the
two was the most dangerous to offend. In spite of the offence given
him by Appleton, he endeavoured to hold the balance even between the
quarrelsome sea powers. He promised the English that he would not allow
the Dutchmen to attack them if they came within the Mole of Leghorn.
In regard to the waters beyond he could give no guarantee, since he had
no naval force. To make assurance doubly sure, he allowed the English
merchant ships to land their cargoes, and put them for safety in the
Lazaretto or Quarantine House of Leghorn. Appleton might possibly have
increased his force to a point which would have made it comparatively
safe for him to give battle to the Dutch, if the merchant ships in the
harbour had been willing to help him. They all carried guns, and the
crews of that time were comparatively large. The merchant captains
displayed the cowardice of the mere trader. They refused to give
Appleton any help, alleging as their excuse that they had no orders
from home to recognise his authority, and no security that they would
be paid for any damage their vessels might suffer in action with the
Dutch. During all the summer and autumn of 1652, Appleton and Charles
Longland, the agent of the Commonwealth in Florence, were engaged in
fruitless efforts to recruit the strength of the squadron from the
merchant ships at Leghorn and Venice.
Since there was no hope from this source, nothing remained but to wait
for the arrival of Badiley, in the hope that when all the six English
warships were together, they might prove more capable of dealing with
the enemy. It was a desperate chance, since all the probabilities
were that Badiley would sail into the middle of the Dutch blockading
ships. In order to reduce this danger as far as possible, Appleton
despatched Captain Owen Cox with the =Constant Warwick= to meet the
ships coming from the Levant, and warn them of the danger. The usual
course for an officer bringing a convoy from the Levant would be to
touch at Zante, picking up other merchant ships, then to go on to
Messina and Naples for the same purpose, to range the coast of Italy as
high as Leghorn, and then sail for the Straits, where he would pick up
the Spanish trade. The =Constant Warwick= found Badiley at Zante, the
most southerly of the Ionian Islands, where he was waiting for ships
still on their way from Smyrna and Cyprus. On receipt of the news of
war and the danger of Appleton, he came straight on, without making
the usual stoppages at Messina and Naples. His energy did not avert
disaster. The Dutch blockading squadron had in the meantime passed
from the command of Catz to that of Jan Van Galen, who came overland
to supersede his predecessor. Galen was sufficiently alert to make
himself aware of the approach of Badiley while the English ships were
between the islands of Elba and Corsica. His own squadron had been so
far reinforced that he was able to leave six ships to keep a watch on
Appleton, while he sailed with eleven for the purpose of attacking
Badiley. On the afternoon of the 27th of August, Galen attacked the
English convoy. It consisted of eight vessels in all, but of these only
three were warships; the other five were merchant vessels, sufficiently
well armed to be able to beat off a small privateer or Algerine pirate,
but hardly able to encounter a man-of-war of any size. Yet the Dutch
were generally small; and as Badiley's own ship, the =Paragon=, was
heavier than any of them, it may well be that if the Turkey Company's
ships had shown a manlier spirit, they might have given a fairly good
account of the enemy. As a matter of fact, not only the traders, but
the two warships with Badiley supported him either not at all, or very
little. The encounter on the afternoon of the 27th was confined to
distant cannonading, but next morning the Dutch attacked with energy,
and the =Paragon= had to make a desperate fight for the protection
of her convoy. The whole weight of the action fell upon her. She was
greatly shattered in her rigging, and the loss in killed and wounded
amounted to no less than eighty-one, a very large proportion of a
crew of about three hundred men. In the meantime the merchant ships
did very little, and the =Paragon's= two consorts not very much. One
of them did worse, for she fell into the hands of the enemy. This was
the =Phenix=, which was destined to be the cause of some exciting
events further on. If Captain Badiley told the truth, she was lost by
blundering management and the misconduct of her men. Thirty of the crew
got into the long-boat towing astern, and fled to the =Paragon=, where
they spread so violent a panic that Captain Badiley considered his own
ship in danger of being lost. Fortunately for him, it fell a dead calm,
and when the wind rose he was able to carry the =Paragon=, her one
remaining consort, and the five merchant vessels into Porto Longone, at
the south-east end of the island of Elba.
Here the governor offered him protection, and even remained loyal
to his promises, although offered a heavy bribe by the Dutch if he
would allow them to plunder the English vessels. But though Badiley
escaped destruction, both English squadrons were now blockaded. Jan
Van Galen was further reinforced, and was able to watch both Appleton
at Leghorn and Badiley at Porto Longone. The second of these officers
had been appointed to the general command. In co-operation with
Charles Longland, he kept making strenuous efforts, throughout the
last months of this year and the early months of the next, to raise
his own force so far that he could attack the Dutch with some hope of
success, or at least reunite the two squadrons. He failed to do either
one or the other. He and Longland were in want of money, the merchant
captains were in want of courage, and the vigilance of the Dutch kept
the English apart and impotent. The watch on Porto Longone was not so
close but that Badiley was able to go to and fro between that port
and Leghorn. The =Constant Warwick=, too, re-entered Leghorn, but no
general movement was possible. So the year wore away. It was noted
that when the news of Blake's defeat off Dungeness reached Italy, the
Grand Duke showed himself even less friendly than before. There were
many Royalist exiles at his court who spared no effort to injure the
Parliament's officers. Dutch diplomacy was active, and an envoy from
"the person called Charles II.," as Captain Badiley described his king,
appeared in time to support their representations.
In the meantime the English at Leghorn were subject to a perpetual
blistering irritation. The Dutch brought the =Phenix= into the
roadstead, and began ostentatiously to fit her as a man-of-war. When
she was ready, the command was given to Cornelius van Tromp, the son
of the famous admiral. The sight of this vessel was an eyesore to
the English, and in particular to Captain Owen Cox, who had been
transferred to the command of the =Bonaventure= on the death of her
captain, Witheridge. Cox began to plot schemes for retaking the
=Phenix=. Appleton, who was afraid of offending the Grand Duke, was
very angry with his subordinate's excess of zeal, and even went so far
as to put him under arrest, but Badiley restored him to his command.
At the same time, he certainly gave his approval to schemes for
retaking the prize. He justified this strong measure in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Grand Duke's harbour by arguments which no doubt
appeared convincing to himself, but are mainly remarkable for a rather
childlike simplicity. "If two people," said Captain Badiley, "who
are at enmity with one another, go into the house of a third on the
promise that they will not make a disturbance, of course they ought
to keep quiet, but if one of them filches the sword of the other, the
gentleman robbed has surely a right to recover his stolen property.
Now the Dutch have filched our ship the =Phenix=, and so the Grand
Duke cannot reasonably object if we take her back again." The English
captains were not so convinced of the unanswerable character of their
interpretation of international law as to present it for the Grand
Duke's consideration before they took the =Phenix=. The argument was
pretty, but it was better to expound the law after the =Phenix= had
changed hands. They also decided that the more quietly the thing was
done the better. According to their exposition of the practice of
nations, it was quite legitimate to take an enemy in neutral waters,
provided that the ship were taken in the small hours, and that no
pistols were fired to disturb the slumbers of the citizens.
The capture was effected in this way, but not until Cornelius van Tromp
had given the English further intolerable provocation. About the middle
of November he put to sea on a cruise, and returned a few days later
with his prize. By way of insult and glorification over his enemy,
Cornelius van Tromp had entered the roadstead trailing the English
flag in the water under his stern. On the night of the 20th November
he was punished for this piece of unmannerly brag. A cutting-out
party was prepared in Appleton's flagship, the =Leopard=. It consisted
of three boats. Captain Cox, who was very properly entrusted with
the execution of his favourite enterprise, took the first, with
fourteen men, Lieutenant Young of the =Leopard= had the second, with
thirty-three, and Lieutenant Lynn of the =Bonaventure= the third, with
the same number of men. The opportunity had been well chosen. It was
St. Andrew's Eve, and the Dutch were carousing. Captain Badiley was
informed that in order to ingratiate themselves with the Italians the
Dutch captains heard a sermon from a friar before dinner. He preached
upon the text, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men"; for
which sin "nearly a hundred of their men were fished from them that
night in the =Phenix=." The boats lost one another in the dark after
leaving the =Leopard=, and it was not until "the appearing of the
morning stars" that they were all alongside the prize. The capture was
easily effected, for a large part of the Dutch crew was drinking on
shore, and the other was more or less drunk on the ship. Young Tromp
was finishing a carouse in the cabin when the English broke in. He
escaped capture by diving from the stern-port and swimming to another
Dutch ship, but, although he was very quick, he did not get off till
one of the English sailors had given him a wipe with a cutlass, telling
him that that was for trailing the English flag under his stern. From
the moment he was in possession of the deck, Captain Cox cut cable
and set sail. There was a good deal of scuffling and fighting between
decks, in which Lieutenant Young was killed, but the English finally
drove the Dutch into the hold, and would have quelled the resistance
much sooner if they had not fulfilled their obligations to the Grand
Duke by rigidly abstaining from the use of firearms. Several of the
Dutch ships pursued, but they might as well have spared themselves
the trouble. The =Phenix= easily out sailed them all, and Captain Cox
carried her to Naples.
This incident filled the English both at Leghorn and Porto Longone
with high gratification, but it was the beginning of new sorrows. The
Grand Duke at first laughed at the trick, but the outcries of the
Dutch forced him to take a more serious view of the outrage. An act of
hasty ill-temper on the part of Captain Appleton gave him an excuse
for putting the English captain into prison at Pisa. Later on, he
handed him over to Badiley at Porto Longone. The English endeavoured
to propitiate the Italian prince by the sentence of a court-martial
which removed Appleton from his command. His offence had been that
he took a runaway prisoner out of the hands of the duke's sentry on
the Mole. But although the Grand Duke professed himself satisfied,
and even asked that Appleton might be restored to his command, he
was plainly annoyed with the English, and probably very tired of the
trouble they were causing him. The urgent appeals of Longland and
Badiley for reinforcements from England could not be answered at the
very height of the great war. The Grand Duke may perhaps have thought
that it was better to make friends of the Dutch. He began to press
either for the surrender of the =Phenix= by the English, or for their
departure from his port. At last, in March 1653, Badiley decided to
wait no longer. Indeed the Grand Duke was showing a temper which made
decisive action necessary. Badiley therefore sent orders to Appleton
to get ready the two men-of-war, and the four merchant ships, lying
within the Mole, to meet him. The Dutch had raised the blockade of
Porto Longone, and were concentrated outside Leghorn. The plan of the
English commander was that he should appear off the port, and that so
soon as he was known to be in the neighbourhood, Captain Appleton was
to take the opportunity to slip out by night. Badiley, in the course of
a controversy which arose between the two, asserted that he gave strict
orders to the effect that the ships within the Mole were not to come
out by day unless they saw him engaged with the Dutch. He complained
that the sloth of Appleton and his captains spoiled this plan. They
did not make the necessary exertions to come out of cover by night.
Then their rashness completed what their idleness had begun. They came
out in broad daylight, when it was impossible to slip past the Dutch
unseen. These two errors were, according to Badiley, the cause of the
disaster which ensued. As the English ships came out with a leading
wind, they had the Dutch between them and the English ships which had
come over from Porto Longone. It was the manifest interest of the enemy
to attack the English in detail. Badiley being at the greater distance
and to leeward, they naturally attacked Appleton. If they had followed
the reverse course, they would have presented the English with an
opportunity of concentrating upon them, since Appleton would have had
nothing to do but to run down from windward to the assistance of his
colleague. The two men-of-war and four armed merchant ships which had
come out from Leghorn were easily overpowered by the Dutch. Badiley
says he was unable to render Appleton any effectual assistance, and the
Council of State seems to have thought that he was telling the truth.
The =Leopard= made a stout fight, but the other ships did not offer a
prolonged resistance.
After the capture of the ships at Leghorn, there was nothing to detain
Badiley on the coast of Northern Italy, and he therefore betook himself
first to Naples, and then to the Straits. He would, if he had had
his own choice, have remained abroad to cruise, but his men were by
this time sick of the service, and were clamouring to return home.
He appears to have been afflicted by some very disorderly fellows in
his ships' companies. It was in vain that Captain Badiley appealed to
their patriotism, and threatened them with the terrors of No. 11 in the
Parliament's recently issued Articles of War. They answered persuasions
and threats alike with cries of "Home, home!" At last he sailed, and
reached England unopposed. The riotous character of his men was not
improved by the time they returned to Chatham. Their violence made the
duty of paying them off very irksome to Mr. Commissioner Pett, but he
had his revenge; for no sooner were they paid off on their return from
the Straits than they were pressed again, and sent off to serve their
country in the great decisive battles of the war in June and July.
Diplomatic difficulties arose between the Government of England
and the Grand Duke of Tuscany in consequence of this episode of the
war, but before this there had been a violent pamphlet controversy
between the parties concerned. It was one of the earliest, though not
the first, of the series of naval quarrels. Appleton, considering he
had been left in the lurch by Badiley, openly accused his commander
of treachery and cowardice, in a pamphlet dedicated to Cromwell and
supported by the testimony of his captains. Badiley replied by a
counter-pamphlet, retorting the charges of treachery and cowardice on
Appleton, and adorning his defence of himself by charges of incapacity,
impiety, and immorality against his critics. Both parties were very
angry, very hot, and very abusive. They present the reader with the
spectacle of heated seafaring men wrangling in an abusive manner, with
much clumsy irony. On the whole, it does appear that if Appleton had
been more alert and intelligent, he might have given more effectual
help to Badiley. So Cromwell apparently thought, for Appleton was not
employed again. Yet both were so furious, loud-mouthed, and brutal,
that it is impossible to accept either as a wholly trustworthy witness.