FROM THE FOUR DAYS' BATTLE TILL THE END OF THE WAR
AUTHORITIES.--The same as for the previous chapter, with the addition
of the Parliamentary History for the debates in the House, and the
Calendar of Colonial Papers for transactions in the West Indies.
Honour and interest made it necessary to try to wipe off the discredit
of the late defeat. The nation had been so deeply moved that it would
probably have been dangerous for the king to meet Parliament if this
duty was neglected. In spite, therefore, of the disturbance caused
by the plague, strenuous efforts were made to get a new fleet ready
for sea, and they were not unsuccessful. The patriotism of the nation
did something to supply resources. Even the courtiers, in a spasm of
virtue, agreed to subscribe in order to supply a vessel to replace
=The Prince=. Volunteers were found for the navy, in spite of the
unpopularity brought on the service by bad pay and bad food. What was
not done by voluntary offer was done by the unsparing use of the press.
So zealous were some of the officers entrusted with this duty, that the
pressmen at Gravesend offered to press Sir Edward Seymour. A suspicion
that this zeal was at least partly dictated by a desire to extort a
bribe, is justified by stories reported from other quarters. There were
loud complaints of the quality of the men sent into the fleet. Some of
the king's officers had no hesitation in describing the bulk of them
as worthless, miserable creatures. At the same time, it was alleged
that in some of the out-ports hundreds of stout seamen were walking
the streets unmolested. It would be strange if the only incorruptible
persons at that time had been the officers conducting the press, and we
are quite entitled to take it for granted that the work was often done
after the immortal pattern supplied by Sir John Falstaff. Bullcalf, who
could pay, was let off, while Wart and Feeble, who could not pay, were
taken.
The Dutch, who, in spite of some bragging on our side, had suffered
less than ourselves in the Four Days' Battle, were at sea a month
before our fleet could leave the Thames. As early as the 29th of June
their ships were seen off the North Foreland, engaged in picking up
the anchors they had left when attacked by Monk on the 1st of the
month. After thriftily recovering their lost property, they stood
into the estuary of the Thames and cruised between Margate and the
Gunfleet. In London the air was full of rumours of their insolence, and
ostentatious enjoyment of their victory. It was said, falsely, that Sir
George Ayscue was treated with insult, and there was another story, no
better founded, that the body of Sir William Berkeley was exposed in a
sugar-chest, with his flag beside him. Stories of this kind stimulated
the desire of the nation to see the fleet again ready for sea. Indeed,
there were other and stronger reasons for exertion. The danger of
invasion was real. If the King of France had been honestly anxious to
press the war against England, it is almost certain that a French army
might have been landed in Kent. We had absolutely no force ready to
interfere with the operations of the Dutch fleet. It could have shipped
any number of men the French king could supply, and might have landed
them pretty much where it pleased. But Louis was already contemplating
an attack on the Spanish Netherlands, and was looking forward to
secure the co-operation of the King of England. He declined to make
an irreparable breach with his brother sovereign for the sake of the
Republic, which he knew to be in reality his most serious opponent.
Therefore, although rumours of the coming of French troops were rife in
England, and although our cruisers were active in taking French prizes,
there was no attempt at an invasion, and King Louis made no effectual
effort to help the Dutch.
While the unprepared state of the English fleet caused a pause in the
great operations of war, the smaller cruisers were tolerably active
on both sides. The feats of single ships are not recorded so fully
at this time as later, but traces remain which show that captains
of spirit were active. We hear, for instance, of a desperate action
between a French East Indiaman and an English frigate, the =Orange=.
The fight had been so hot that the Frenchman was in a sinking state
when the English took possession of him. Here we have another example
of the discipline of the time. The English prize-crew fell to rifling
the Frenchman's hold, and were so intent on this occupation that they
forgot to stop the leaks. The result was, that the Frenchman went
to the bottom, carrying forty of his captors with him. The incident
is typical. In small things as in great, it was then the rule that
what was won by valour and conduct in battle was lost by greed and
self-seeking afterwards. Another incident of the time illustrates the
fall in the level of national courage. Some gentlemen belonging to the
county of Essex had banded themselves together to act as a bodyguard
to the deputy-lieutenant, who was engaged in collecting the militia
to resist the threatened Dutch invasion. Being on the sea-coast, and
finding a small armed galliot belonging to the king at hand, they
were fired with ambition to go out and have a brush with the Dutch.
The commander of the galliot, who seems to have been a man of some
humour, was prepared to indulge them. They ran to sea, and soon found
themselves in the immediate neighbourhood of a Dutch look-out vessel.
The captain of the galliot attacked at once with so much zeal that
he soon came within musket-shot of the enemy. This was more than the
doughty bodyguard of the deputy-lieutenant had bargained for. They
were seized with an extreme panic, and insisted upon being taken back.
The captain of the galliot refused, alleging that he would be hanged
if he returned for no better reason. The country gentlemen replied
that their lives were of more value than his, since some of them were
even knights. Even this appeal to the respect he owed his betters had
no effect upon the mind of the skipper of the galliot. At last the
terrified squires and knights had recourse to a more persuasive line of
reasoning. They offered him a bribe in the shape of a handsome piece
of plate. This was probably what the captain had been aiming at all
the time. The informer who sent this story to Mr. Secretary Williamson
added that it had better not be put in the Gazette as an example of
English valour; and yet, if accompanied by judicious comment, it might
have had considerable value.
The fleet which was to revenge us on the Dutch was collected, during
the latter days of June and the early days of July, at the Nore. The
command was still in the hands of Monk and Rupert, though the death of
Myngs and Berkeley, the capture of Ayscue, and the wound of Harman,
had made some changes in the subordinate places necessary. The total
force of the fleet was put at eighty-seven ships and the fireships. The
numbers might have been higher, but the admirals decided to take the
crews out of fifteen of the smaller vessels and distribute them among
the larger. Our ships had never been so strongly manned in mere numbers
before. The spirit of the men was good, and it must in justice be
allowed that the courtiers set a very honourable example. They flocked
into the fleet to take part in the coming battle; even the notorious
Rochester, who was one of the worst men of that or any other time, went
as a volunteer with Sir Edward Spragge. One gentleman, Sir Robert Leach
by name, had been told in a dream that he would kill De Ruyter with a
"fusee," _i.e._ fowling-piece, and he came to the ship of Sir Robert
Holmes to fulfil the prophecy. Holmes promised to take him near enough
to prove the truth of his dream.
It was on the 19th of July that the fleet began to drop down from
the Nore. Several channels lead out from this anchorage to the open
sea. Immediately below the Nore is the Warp, from which the West Swin
branches out on the left as you go to the N.E., the Barrow Deep is to
the right, and then the Oaze Deep beyond it. The tangle of shallows at
the mouth of the Thames is traversed by navigable channels running in
different directions. Several of these had not been surveyed in the
time of Charles II., and it is therefore not necessary to mention more
for the purpose of explaining the movements of the fleet than those
that were then in general use. It must be remembered that the coast of
Essex is fringed by shallows. At the very mouth of the river, beginning
above Shoeburyness, are the Maplin Sands, north and a little east of
the Maplin Sands is Foulness Sand, and north of that again Buxey. In
the seventeenth century these were called the Rolling Grounds. From the
north-east corner of Buxey stretches out the Gunfleet, which itself
runs towards the north-east. The navigable passage which goes along
these three channels is called, after it leaves the Warp, just opposite
the Maplin Sands, first the West Swin, then the East Swin. Here a
narrow shallow called the Middle Ground divides it from the Middle
Deep. At the end of the Middle Ground the East Swin and Middle Deep
join together to make the King's Channel, which flows past the Gunfleet
and leads into the open sea. The right-hand side of this channel is
formed, at the place where it is called the West Swin, by the shallows
known as the West Barrow, the Barrow, and the East Barrow. The Barrow
Channel is on the other side of this shallow. Both run from S.W. to
N.E. On the right hand as you go out of Barrow Deep are the Oaze, the
Nob, the North Nob, the Barrow Ridge, the Knock John, and then the
Sunk: all these have the same general direction as the Barrow. On the
eastern side of the shallows, beginning at the Oaze Deep and flowing on
till it mingles in the King's Channel at the Sunk Head, is the Black
Deep, the main channel into and out of the Thames. On the right-hand
side of the Black Deep, going out, is the Long Sand, which is fairly
described by its name. This also stretches from S.W. to N.E. Between
the south-west end of the Long Sand and the coast of Kent are the
Girdler, the Kentish Flats, the Margate Sands, and a host of confusing
shallows and channels, not necessary to be specified. Outside and on
the east of the Long Sand is the Knock Deep, and then the Kentish
Knock. This was the scene of the first battle of the first Dutch war.
A line drawn straight south from the Kentish Knock would strike on
the Goodwin Sands. At flood-tide there is a strong current which runs
through these channels and over these sands, towards London. At the
ebb the current is in the reverse direction.
Now it will be obvious that the difficulty of bringing a fleet of
sailing ships from the Nore to the North Sea through all these
obstructions to navigation is great, and that the difficulty may grow
into a very serious danger if there is an enemy waiting outside. To
carry the ships out in one tide from the Warp through the Swin or
Barrow into the King's Channel, or through the Black Deep into the open
sea, required a combination, of either a good breeze and an ebb-tide,
or such a strong wind from the west, with a flood-tide, as would
enable a fleet to make head against the current. The difficulties of
an approach to the Black Deep are so serious, in consequence of the
numerous little sands lying at the entry to it, that it was decided in
July 1666 to take the fleet out by the Swin, but this had necessarily
to be done at one tide. De Ruyter was cruising between the Long Sand
and the Naze, with an advanced detachment of ships at the Gunfleet.
If, then, the English fleet, in coming through the Swin, had been
caught by the turn of the tide at a moment when part of the fleet
had passed and the other had not, that portion of it which was still
dropping down the Channel might be stopped until the next tide. In
the meantime, those which had already passed might be subject to an
attack by the whole force of De Ruyter coming on with the flood-tide.
From this it could only escape by running back into the Swin, a very
dangerous operation for vessels in a narrow tideway under the fire of
enemies. Before, then, attempting to issue from the Sea Reach Swin and
Middle Deep into the King's Channel, it was necessary to be sure that
the wind would be strong enough to enable the whole fleet to get out
together on one ebb-tide. The opportunity did not present itself until
the 21st of July. Before that, the ships were making their way down as
far as the Middle Ground. Here they anchored in a body on the 19th. Sir
Thomas Clifford, who was again with the fleet, and the Generals Monk
and Rupert in their flagship, the =Royal Charles=, wrote a stirring
description to Lord Arlington of the spectacle presented by this great
fleet, stretching along for nine or ten miles as it worked its way down
the Channel. The length of the long column of ships working through the
fairway constituted the difficulty of getting them out in one tide.
Clifford reported that the fleet was in high spirits, and had prepared
for serious work. The cabins were pulled down, and the decks clear.
Even the common men were full of spirit, declaring that "if we do not
beat them now, we never shall." Yet we can understand the anxiety of
the generals. For two days the fleet lay at the Middle Ground. The wind
was still too much from the north to afford a reasonable security of
clearing the narrow passages between the East Barrow and Foulness. On
the 22nd it had shifted sufficiently to the west to allow the fleet
to get under way. Monk and Rupert were on deck all day, and, so Sir
Thomas Clifford reports, "sometimes a little rough with the pilots"
in their impatience at the hesitations of the technical man. Captain
Elliot led the van of eleven ships and eight or nine fireships, in the
=Revenge=, with orders to fall upon the Dutch advance guard if they did
not retire from the Gunfleet. If the work had not been done "in the
nick," it would not have been done at all. But done it was, and on the
evening of the 22nd we anchored at the buoy of the Gunfleet. The Dutch
advance squadron weighed anchor and stood out to the N. of E. as we
came on. The bulk of the Dutch fleet, with De Ruyter, was riding at the
Naze. Another English vessel, the =Rupert=, joined the fleet here from
Harwich.
On the morning of the 23rd, both fleets weighed anchor. The Dutch were
farther out than the English, and a little to the south of them. Monk
and Rupert desired to force an action at once, but the enemy worked
away to the southward, and could not be brought to battle. Our fleet
had started beating drums and preparing for action, with the pomp and
circumstance beloved by the fighting men of former times. The wind was
light, and fell before evening almost to a calm, so that we anchored
at dark on the outskirts of the shallows of the Thames estuary. The
fall of the wind was followed by a violent gale, which raged all
through the night and the early hours of the 24th of July. The Jersey
was struck by lightning, and so disabled that she was compelled to
make her way to Harwich. Her captain, Digby, pleaded to stay as a
volunteer in the flagship, but was ordered to go with his ship. Towards
the afternoon the wind moderated, the fleet weighed anchor and again
moved in pursuit of the Dutch, of whom it had lost sight during the
previous evening. Little progress was made, and the generals anchored
at nightfall eight leagues east of the Naze. It is possible that De
Ruyter, who had fallen back on the 23rd, returned when the gale had
exhausted its force. For on the morning of the 25th he was seen to the
south of the English fleet. The generals had again got under way at two
o'clock in the morning, and at daybreak the Dutch were seen to leeward
of the English. From the account given in Brandt's _Life of Michael de
Ruyter_, of the council of war held on board the _Seven Provinces_, it
appears that the Dutch had decided to accept battle to leeward.
In strength the fleets about to engage were almost exactly equal. The
fleet of the United Provinces consisted of seventy-three warships,
and twenty-six frigates and look-out vessels, with twenty fireships.
It was divided into three squadrons. The van was under the command
of Lieutenant-Admiral Jan Evertszoon. The second in command under
Evertszoon was Lieutenant-Admiral Tjerk Hiddes de Vries. The third
was Vice-Admiral Bankert, the fourth Vice-Admiral Koenders, and there
were under them two officers known by a title peculiar to the Dutch
Navy--that of _Schoutbynacht_, of which the literal meaning is the
Command-by-night. It answered to the Rear-Admiral of our navy. Their
names were Evertszoon and Brunsvelt. Jan Evertszoon, though equal in
rank to De Ruyter, carried a flag, of which the Dutch name is _Wimpel_,
at the foremast, as his actual office was only that of leader of the
van. De Ruyter commanded in the centre. His second in command was the
Lieutenant-Admiral van Nes. His third was Vice-Admiral de Liefde, his
fourth the Schoutbynacht, Jan van Nes. De Ruyter's flag was at the
mainmast; the rear was commanded by Tromp; Lieutenant-Admiral Meppel,
Vice-Admirals van Schram and Sveers, with W. van der Zaan and G't Hoen
in the rank of Schoutbynacht. Tromp, as commander of the rear, had the
Wimpel at the mizen.
The strength of the English fleet was put in the official account at
ninety, but it appears really to have consisted of ninety-two ships
fit to lie in a line of battle. We did not as yet distinguish between
battleships and light ships, and in fact there were fewer of the latter
with us than with the Dutch, so that the ninety-two of the English
were equal in effective strength to the ninety-nine of the Dutch. Our
fireships were seventeen in number. The van of the English fleet--that
is to say, the White Division--was commanded by Sir Thomas Allen, with
Sir Thomas Teddiman as vice-admiral, and Captain Utbar as rear. The
rear, or Blue Division, was commanded by Sir Jeremy Smith, with Sir
Edward Spragge as vice-admiral, and Kempthorne was rear-admiral. The
Red or Central Division was under the direct command of the generals,
Monk and Rupert, who were together in the flagship, the =Royal
Charles=. Sir Joseph Jordan was vice-admiral, and Sir Robert Holmes
rear-admiral.
Though the enemy had been sighted at daybreak, the battle did not begin
until nine or ten o'clock; both hours are mentioned by eye-witnesses,
and it may be that neither is quite accurate. Estimates of time taken
in such circumstances, and hurriedly reported after a battle, can
hardly be minutely accurate. The English fleet bore down on the Dutch
in a line abreast from the north-west, sailing on the port tack. They
stood on their course till they were parallel with the enemy, and then
bore up all together, and engaged him from end to end of the line. Sir
Thomas Allen in command of the White Squadron engaged the Dutch van
under the command of Evertszoon. The Red Squadron came into action with
De Ruyter, and Sir Jeremy Smith with Cornelius van Tromp. In accordance
with an almost universal experience, the rear division of the English
was in some disorder when it engaged Tromp. Part of the ships were out
of their place, with the result that some of them were under the fire
of the Dutch before the others. For five hours the action raged with
very equal fortunes. We do not hear of any manoeuvres on either side,
unless it be in the boast of the English that they engaged the enemy
so close as to give him no opportunity to tack. As the afternoon wore
on, the English began to gain the upper hand. The Dutch van and centre
began to flinch, and fall away to leeward. In the rear the course of
battle had been somewhat different. Sir Jeremy's Smith's squadron
was considered weaker than the other two. As it was not inferior in
numbers to the centre, this estimate was probably made to console the
national complacency for the failure of the squadron, which might be
sufficiently accounted for by the disordered state of the English ships
at the beginning of the battle. Tromp, who at all times showed a wilful
preference for acting by himself, took advantage of his comparative
success against the Blue Squadron to break away from his admiral. When
De Ruyter and Evertszoon fell away to leeward, he did not follow them,
but remained closely engaged with the English rear. Thus the battle
broke into two, the Dutch van and centre retreating towards their own
coast, with the English Red and White Squadrons in pursuit, whilst the
Dutch rear division and the English Blue Squadron remained behind,
cannonading one another with fairly equal fortunes.
By the time that De Ruyter and Evertszoon were undeniably in retreat,
it was almost dark. The night put a stop to the battle. Next day,
the 26th of July, the wind had almost fallen to a calm, and the two
fleets remained within sight of one another, but neither able to
move except at a very slow rate. Prince Rupert took advantage of the
helplessness of the enemy to play off a piece of bravado on De Ruyter.
He had bought a little sailing-yacht, which he named the =Fan-fan=,
and towed about with him behind the flagship. She carried two toy
pop-guns for ornament. A little craft of this kind could be easily
handled in breezes which produced no effect on the bulk of the _Seven
Provinces_. Rupert sent her out with orders to take her place opposite
the stern of De Ruyter's flagship and fire into her, by way of insult
and derision. The calm was so great that the little =Fan-fan= was able
to enjoy the amusement of banging away at the big Dutchman with her
pop-guns for two hours, before the enemy was able to move. At last
the breeze got up again. The =Fan-fan= ran back into our fleet, and
the pursuit was resumed. De Ruyter kept in the rear of his flying
fleet, gallantly supported by some of his captains. The historian of
his life says that in his anguish he called for death, and regretted
that none of the many bullets flying about had struck him. At last,
on the evening of the 26th, the Dutch ran into the shallow water near
Flushing, and so escaped. The English fleet anchored outside.
While two-thirds of the fleet on either side were drifting or sailing
towards Flushing, Cornelius van Tromp and Sir Jeremy Smith were
fighting their detached action on their own account. During the night
of the 26th the sound of their guns was heard by ships at anchor off
Flushing. The English fleet got under way and stood out in the hopes of
intercepting the Dutch rear division. It would have added immensely to
the glory of the victory if they could have carried out their purpose.
Only four prizes had been taken on the 25th, and against this we
have to set off the loss of one vessel of our own, the _Resolution_.
Tromp had with him twenty-five battleships, six frigates, and eight
fireships. If their road home could have been barred by the White and
Red Squadrons at a time when Sir Jeremy Smith was pressing on them from
behind, it is probable that every one of the thirty-nine might have
fallen into our hands, and then the disaster to Holland would have been
crushing. In the hope of fulfilling their triumph on this splendid
scale, the English fleet stood out to sea on the 27th of July. The wind
was at the N.E. Tromp and Smith were seen far out, engaged with one
another. The White and Red Squadrons stood out until they were opposite
to Tromp, and then tacked to put themselves in the direction he was
following, and bar his road home. It was maintained at the time that if
the admiral of the Blue had handled his squadron with spirit, he would
have driven Tromp into the bulk of the English fleet. He was violently
accused not only of incompetence, but of personal cowardice. The latter
accusation may be dismissed as being only a form of calumny common at
that time, but it does seem that Smith showed some want of skill. He
might have excused himself by alleging that he had done as well as
anybody else. The two generals who directed the fleet had little right
to complain of the mismanagement of a subordinate officer. With the
wind in the N.E., they surely had it in their power to force an action
with Tromp. They were to windward, and he was making his way homeward
against the wind. Yet they were content to lie in wait for the Dutchmen
at the point to which they took it for granted he would be driven by
the Blue Division. The upshot of it was that he slipped between the
two. During the night of the 27th the Blue Squadron lost sight of the
enemy, and Tromp, skilfully avoiding the White and Red Squadrons,
joined De Ruyter in harbour.
Although the battle had produced few prizes, and the escape of Tromp
had shorn it of its hoped-for fair proportions, it was the subject of
great and legitimate rejoicing in England. De Ruyter had been driven
from his cruising-ground at the mouth of the Thames. We had again
proved that we could overcome the Dutch in battle, and were masters of
the sea. Monk and Rupert made a vigorous use of their success. They
swept along the coast of Holland, driving the enemy's commerce into
port, or capturing all ships that dared to remain out. An opportunity
of inflicting a great blow on a Dutch corporation which was regarded
with peculiar animosity in England, was put in their way through the
treason of a Dutch officer who had been dismissed from the service.
This ignoble scoundrel informed the English admirals that a number of
vessels belonging to the Dutch East India Company were lying inside of
Vlieland and Terschelling, two islands north of the Texel and opposite
the coast of Friesland. There were also a number of other merchant
ships, some from the Baltic, and some from the coast of Africa, lying
in the same roadsteads. The islands of Vlieland and Terschelling
contained large magazines belonging partly to the Dutch East India
Company and partly to the States. Here was a mass of plunder which it
was neither the interest nor, indeed, the duty of the English admirals
to neglect. It was decided to sail in and attack. The squadron detached
for the purpose was put under the command of Sir Robert Holmes, the
rear-admiral of the Red Squadron. On the 8th of August the fleet was
close to Vlieland, but, the wind not being favourable for an attack
on that island, it turned into the roadstead of Terschelling on the
9th, and there destroyed one hundred and sixty merchant ships, and two
men-of-war that had been told off for their convoy. To the end that the
work of injuring the Dutch should be done thoroughly, orders were given
that the vessels captured should be fired at once, lest the temptation
to look after the prizes should distract the attention of the officers
and men. There was a real disinterestedness in this, for the captain
who fired a richly-laden Dutch merchant ship was in fact burning his
own chance of a fortune. It must be put to the credit of a greedy time
that these orders were thoroughly obeyed. The Dutch were fired, and not
taken off as prizes. On the following day a naval brigade was landed
in the island of Terschelling, and one of the towns was burned to the
ground. The stores found in the warehouses were carried off to the
ships, as some compensation to the men for the loss of the merchant
ships the day before. The taking of the plunder was in accordance with
the military practices of all times, but the burning of the town was a
cruel act, and compares very unfavourably with the conduct of De Ruyter
at Chatham in the following year. The loss to the Dutch was estimated
at £1,200,000. After inflicting this severe retaliation for the injury
which De Ruyter had caused by his occupation of the mouth of the
Thames, the English fleet returned home.
Yet the Dutch were not so seriously injured but that they were at sea
again within a month. The French king, provoked perhaps by the injury
inflicted on the commerce of his country by English cruisers, was at
last showing some serious signs of an intention to reinforce the fleet
of his ally. A French squadron was sent into the Channel, under the
command of the Duke of Beaufort. The Dutch, in hopes of meeting him,
stood along the French coast as far as Boulogne. They were at once
followed by the English, under the sole command of Prince Rupert.
The great fire of London had taken place during the interval. Amid
the terror and confusion it had caused, there was a loud cry for the
presence of Monk. The Lord General was one of the few leading men of
the day who had not fled from the plague. He had stood his ground,
and had kept order whilst the pestilence was at its worst, showing no
other sign of anxiety for his own safety than to indulge rather more
than usual in his habitual practice of smoking and chewing tobacco. He
chewed tobacco and spat about the deck when yardarm to yardarm with
De Ruyter, and he did it during the plague, to keep out the germs of
death. The nation had profound confidence in the stolid courage and
unfailing loyalty to duty of the man who had restored the monarchy. The
scandal of the time asserted that he had been recalled from the fleet
in disgrace, but there can be no doubt that he was summoned to London
because he was one of the very few who could be trusted to put his hand
to a piece of public work, with the intention of doing it first, and of
attending to his own pecuniary interests afterwards. Rupert's cruise in
the Channel was so far successful that no junction took place between
the Dutch and French. De Ruyter drew his vessels into the shallow water
near Boulogne, and, when bad weather drove the English fleet off, took
the opportunity to turn home. The bulk of the French fleet did not
come into the Channel, but some of them advanced far enough to give
us the only chance we had hitherto had of punishing them for joining
the Dutch. When Rupert was driven off the coast of Boulogne, he fell
back to St. Helens. The squadron of Sir Thomas Allen was kept at sea
to watch for the French. Three or four of their vessels were met in
the Channel in the course of September, and one of them, the _Ruby_,
of seventy guns, was taken. Beaufort did not venture to come on, and,
as the autumn was now begun, the fleets on both sides retired into
harbour.
The great war may be said to have come to an end with the withdrawal
of the main fleets in the early autumn of 1666. There were still some
operations of squadrons in distant seas, and the country had one
disgrace to undergo unparalleled in our own history, or, considering
the circumstances, in any other. At least it would be difficult to
find a case in which a powerful nation was compelled to see its ships
burnt within earshot of its capital, and its coast insulted, at the
close of a successful war. This disgrace was the direct result of
corruption and bad management on the part of the Government. The
excuse made for Charles II. by official apologists is that he allowed
himself to be surprised at the end of the second Dutch war, solely
because he was candid enough to rely for his protection on the peaceful
negotiations then in progress with the Dutch. The plain English of this
very lame apology is that the king was compelled to seize upon the
first plausible pretext for opening negotiations with the Dutch, by
the state of penury to which mismanagement had reduced his treasury,
and that, having provided himself with an excuse for not keeping his
fleet on a war footing by opening a correspondence with the enemy, he
took advantage of it to divert the money voted for the war to other
purposes. Hence it was that in the spring of 1667 the country was found
unprepared, and that the Dutch, under the command of De Ruyter, who was
accompanied by Cornelius de Witt in the capacity of delegate of the
States, was able to burn the ships at Chatham.
When the country found itself committed to hostilities with the Dutch
at the close of 1664, Parliament had been induced to vote the sum of
£2,500,000 for the king's service. Members were in a somewhat gloomy
mood when they were summoned to make good their loyal promises to
the king by providing so large a sum. But the House had soon been
made to understand that war could not be conducted without money.
The £2,500,000 was granted. In 1665 the sum of £1,250,000 was asked
for by the king's servants, and was obtained from the House. In the
early days of 1667 a third vote of £1,800,000 was put at the king's
disposal. The total amount, therefore, voted in those three years
had been £5,550,000. The fixed revenue of the Crown, though it fell
below the estimated amount, was not less than £1,000,000 a year. For
the three years counting from late in 1664 to early in 1667 this
would make £3,000,000, so that the total amount that had been at the
disposal of the Government during these three years had, at least on
paper, been no less than £8,550,000. A large allowance must undoubtedly
be made for the disturbing effects of the plague and the fire. The
king had to put up with delay in obtaining advances from the city
on the security of the revenue, and after the fire the whole of the
business of the Treasury was disorganised for an interval. Yet the
money actually received by the king must have been much the greater
part of the £8,550,000. None the less, his crews were a year or more
in arrear of their pay, the workmen were running from the dockyards to
escape starvation, and the navy was burdened with debt. King Charles
was under no necessity to maintain a great army. This obligation had
weighed on the Government of the Protector, who had to provide for
the Scotch and Irish establishments, and had, moreover, never enjoyed
any equivalent revenue. The sea service of the Protector did indeed
suffer through the financial difficulties of his Government, but was
never so crippled as the navy was in 1667. The religious discontents
in Scotland and conspiracies among the Puritans in England undoubtedly
made it necessary for the king to maintain a body of troops, yet a
very few would have sufficed; and when the king began raising new
regiments at the end of 1666, it was not because they were needed for
the maintenance of order.
The Dutch war had been a disappointment to the king and Court. They
found that they had entirely underestimated the difficulty of defeating
Holland. The war was not, as had been hoped, a rich but a poor one. In
spite of our victories at sea, our commerce suffered so severely that
after the conclusion of hostilities it was found necessary to suspend
those provisions of the Navigation Acts which prohibited the purchase
of foreign-built vessels. In the meantime, every appeal made to the
House of Commons for money had a tendency to strengthen its already
deeply-rooted desire to interfere with the king's administration. This
combination of disappointments abroad with the rising difficulties at
home, ended by thoroughly sickening the king of the Dutch war. He began
to think of the dangers menacing him in England, and to long to be free
from the control of his House of Commons. He was far too clever a man
to imitate the fatal courses of his father. Charles II. would never go
far enough to provoke his people into sending him on his travels for a
second time, and when Parliament became dangerous he yielded. Till it
came to that pass, he would take all he could get, and would prepare,
as far as he safely could, to make himself a despotic king on the model
of his cousin Louis XIV. One way of bringing about that much-desired
consummation was to provide himself with an army. It would have been
an act of suicidal folly to go to Parliament with a request for funds
for the maintenance of troops. Standing army was a phrase which stank
in the nostrils of all Englishmen, and was to none more offensive than
to the king's own most loyal subjects, the Cavaliers, who associated
regular soldiers with the memories of Oliver's major-generals. But
there was one thing the king could do: he could take the money the
Parliament had voted for naval armaments against the Dutch, and apply
it to the payment of soldiers. There was nothing in the "dry and
elegant cynicism" of Charles II. to make him see anything discreditable
in such a manoeuvre; so towards the end of the war he pocketed the
£1,800,000 voted by Parliament for the fleet, and applied it to the
general purposes of his Government, of which one was the formation of
fresh regiments of troops. The navy in the meantime was laid up, with
the exception of a few light squadrons, and the country left without
protection against the Dutch. It is no doubt the case that the king was
technically justified in spending the money as he saw fit. It was voted
for his service, and he was in theory the judge of what constituted his
service. What neither the king nor his advisers foresaw sufficiently
clearly was, that the House of Commons would draw its own deductions
from these facts. It would sooner or later guard itself against the
risk of seeing the money given for one service diverted to another by
insisting on allotting funds for definite purposes. From the moment it
had done that, it had taken the last step which was necessary to give
it direct control over every branch of the public administration.
The session of Parliament began in September 1666, and took a course
well calculated to warn the king of the domestic perils before him.
A bill was introduced in the House of Commons for the examination
of public accounts. According to the terms of this measure, a
Parliamentary Commission was to be appointed, which was to have the
power of calling the king's officers before it, and compelling them
to give an account of all public money that had passed through their
hands. The House was so resolute to give itself this satisfaction
that it at first refused to proceed with supply until the bill was
passed. The terror felt by the king's officers and by his courtiers was
lively. The Diary of Pepys contains ample evidence of the searchings of
heart set going in the Navy Office. The terrors of the courtiers were
even greater, as they were better founded, than those of the king's
officials. Nobody had more to fear from a parliamentary investigation
than Lord Ashley, afterwards first Earl of Shaftesbury. He was chairman
of the Commissioners of Prizes. According to the law, the Commissioners
ought, after satisfying the claims of the officers and men, to have
handed over the surplus for the purposes of the war, but it was
notorious that the fleet had not been paid either wages or prize-money,
and that vast sums of money had been pilfered by the courtiers. Ashley
had the king's orders not to reveal what he had done with the proceeds
of the prizes, and he had also the king's promise that he would be
protected against the House of Commons. The servants of the House
of Stuart had the fate of Strafford to teach them the value of such
guarantees. The danger passed away, but only because the House of
Commons was diverted by other objects. The king had announced that he
never would have passed the bill, even if he failed to get it defeated
in the House of Lords. The belief that he would refuse his consent to
a measure designed to make his servants the servants of the House of
Commons was universal. Some members at least were so convinced of
his obstinacy that they had recourse to an unchivalrous but effectual
method of coercion. They talked of attacking the king's mistress, the
Countess of Castlemaine, thereby setting an example to Ashley, who,
when he had quarrelled with the king at a later period of his career,
cowed his master by threatening to cause the Duchess of Portsmouth to
be presented as a nuisance by the Grand Jury of Middlesex. Clarendon,
though no friend to the extravagances of the Court, was opposed to the
bill, which he held, and very justly, to constitute a great reduction
of the power of the Crown.
Neither the reluctance of the king nor the management of his chancellor
would of themselves have checked the House of Commons if it had not
been diverted by a quarrel about jurisdiction with the House of Lords.
It was getting into that savage state of mind which so often made it
dangerous in the seventeenth century. Members felt that the money they
had voted had been shamefully wasted. They were filled with suspicion
by the increase in the number of troops, and were almost maddened by
fears, which we now know to have been well founded, that the king was
secretly a Roman Catholic, and was nursing schemes to favour those of
his own religion. It must be remembered, too, that the House was very
ill informed. To-day every detail of the public service is subject to
inspection by Parliament, but in the seventeenth century it had not yet
been settled that the king's servants were responsible to Parliament
in any other sense than this, that they might be impeached, and, if
found guilty, be punished for giving bad advice to the king, or for
illegal acts. They were still struggling to maintain the old doctrine
of the Tudor dynasty, that the king's servants answered to the king
alone. Feeling themselves tricked and eluded, being very ignorant of
the facts, it is not wonderful that the members of the House of Commons
were liable to get beside themselves with anger. In their frame of mind
they were always prepared to clamour for a victim. Pepys has recorded
his rueful conviction, not only that the navy officers might be, but
that it was reasonable to think that they ought to be, thrown out
as a sacrifice to the wolves to save the king and great men. On this
occasion, however, they escaped, and it was Clarendon who was thrown
out to pacify the House of Commons. The Bill for Examining Public
Accounts passed the Commons. The Lords, desirous to help the king,
decided to petition him to appoint a committee of inquiry himself. The
Commons were furious at what was manifestly a manoeuvre to avert
a reinvestigation, and a great quarrel arose between the Houses as
to the constitutional orthodoxy of the course taken by the Peers. In
the general conflict the bill was allowed to lapse, but when the king
prorogued Parliament in the beginning of 1667 he found it wise to
promise that he would cause inquiry to be made.
At the time that this promise was given, the king was in hopes of a
speedy settlement with Holland, which might help him to huddle up the
war. Informal negotiations had been going on since the close of the
summer of 1666. Occasion for them had been given by an act of humanity
and courtesy on the part of John de Witt. He caused the body of Sir
William Berkeley, who had fallen in the first day of the Four Days'
Battle, to be skilfully embalmed, and returned it to England under a
flag of truce. Charles had replied by taking the first step towards the
settlement of a peace. Some months passed before they progressed so far
as to become definite negotiations, but it was so much the interest of
both parties to put a stop to hostilities that they were not allowed to
drop. If England, or rather, if the English Treasury, was exhausted,
Holland had begun to be conscious of a danger menacing her very
existence. Her ally, Louis XIV., was entering on a course of aggression
against the Spanish Netherlands, which, if unchecked, must very soon
bring his armies to the borders of the United Provinces, and thereby
reduce them to entire dependence on his mercy. To face this peril while
hampered with a war with England was impossible, and John de Witt was
eager for peace. The King of England for his part was already engaged
in underhand schemes with his cousin Louis XIV., which had for their
ultimate object the destruction of the Dutch Republics, but some time
had to pass before their plans could be ripened. In the interval it
was desirable to make peace, and so, by putting a stop to hostilities
between England and France, leave the two Courts free to act together.
When, therefore, the King of Sweden came forward with offers to act as
mediator, he was accepted by both powers. The Conference appointed to
settle the treaty of peace met at Breda in May.
While the diplomatists were sitting in their different rooms at Breda,
drawing up protocols and sending them to the Swedish ambassador, who
acted as umpire, it was perfectly understood on both sides that the war
was to go on. This was first dishonestly, and then foolishly, denied on
our side. But the actions of our Government prove to demonstration that
it was perfectly well aware that hostilities were not to be suspended.
In May, when the Conference at Breda was just about to meet, the
king, in a letter addressed to the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral,
declared that as London was well supplied with coal, there was no need
to keep at sea more than a few light squadrons, which might distract
the enemy and disturb his trade. These were operations of war. In fact,
so little did the English Government trust to the peace negotiations
for protection, that when it was decided not to send a fleet to sea,
measures were ordered to be taken for the fortification of the coast.
In March the works undertaken for the purpose were already patent to
all the world, and were, in fact, perfectly well known in Holland. At
a later time, when the disastrous consequences of this decision had
been seen, the king threw the blame on his councillors, and the Duke of
York asserted that he had opposed the policy. These were after-thoughts
of men anxious to screen themselves at the expense of others. From
the account given by Pepys of the meeting of the Council at Whitehall
on the 24th of March, it appears that the Duke of York was very well
satisfied with the fortifications. When he was told that they were
known of in Holland, and might be taken for a sign of fear, "the King
and Duke of York both laughed at it and made no matter, but said, 'Let
us be safe and let them talk, for there is nothing that will trouble
them more, nor will prevent their coming over more, than to hear we
are fortifying ourselves.' And the Duke of York said further, 'What
said Marshal Turenne when some in vanity said that the enemies were
afraid, for they entrenched themselves? "Well," says he, "I would that
they were not afraid, for then they would not entrench themselves, and
so we could deal with them the better."'" The difference between the
Government of England and that of Holland in these months was not that
the first relied on negotiations for peace to suspend hostilities,
and that the second took a base advantage of its confidence, but that
England was governed by cunning men of no wisdom, intent on their own
amusements, and that Holland was governed by an energetic and judicious
statesman, who ranked her glory far above any personal aims of his own.
The light squadrons sent out from England were two. The less
interesting and important was sent into the higher latitudes of the
North Sea under the command of Sir J. Smith, to cruise against the
Baltic commerce of the Dutch, and it is reported to have been fairly
successful in taking prizes. It remained there till peace was actually
signed, and then returned, having made some profit for those who could
secure a share in the prizes, but having certainly done nothing to
distract Michael de Ruyter.
The second squadron had a much more varied and brilliant history.
It was commanded by that Sir John Harman who had been captain of
the flagship of the Lord High Admiral in the battle of Lowestoft,
and had afterwards fought with such conspicuous valour in the Four
Days' Battle. Harman came from that part of England which was to the
reign of Charles II. what Devonshire had been to the age of Queen
Elizabeth--a nursery of brave and skilful seamen. The more famous of
the Tarpaulin Admirals, as the regular-bred seamen were nicknamed,
were East Anglians. Harman's people belonged to Suffolk, and from his
portrait he was of that type of eastern county men with sharp, almost
hatchet faces and black hair, who perhaps represent the black Danes.
The station to which he was destined was the West Indies. However
languidly the war had been conducted in Europe by Louis XIV., the
French and English had come to very fierce blows in the Antilles. At
this period the French already possessed Guadaloupe, Martinique, and
some smaller islands. They divided the island of St. Christopher with
us. England had Barbadoes, Antigua, Nevis, which lies immediately next
St. Christopher, on the other half of that island. The Commonwealth had
given us possession of Jamaica. Whether in the French or in the English
islands, the control of the Home Government was very inefficient. There
were conflicts as to jurisdiction between the Crown and the Lords
Proprietors who had secured concessions for settling the islands, and
with the companies which had secured trade monopolies. The islands
were the home of a vast floating population of adventurers, mostly
scoundrels. The Civil War in England had consigned herds of Scotch and
Irish prisoners to what was really slavery in the West Indies. It had
also been the custom both of France and England to supply the planters
with labour by drafting out criminals who were bound to give so many
years of labour. An active trade of kidnapping conducted by rascals who
were known by the cant name of "The Spirits" tended to recruit this
curious nondescript population, which not unnaturally produced a large
proportion of men incapable of regular work. When it is remembered that
the rich Spanish colonies were close at hand, and that Spain was very
weak, no demonstration is required to prove that the West Indies were
swarming with pirates. Under the names of "Brethren of the Coast,"
"flibutiers," and buccaneers, and under the pretext of asserting the
freedom of the rest of the world to share in the possession of America,
these adventurers carried on an incessant piratical warfare against
Spain.
The French king's declaration of war had introduced a new element
into this scene of organised disorder. The French, English, and Dutch
had hitherto worked pretty harmoniously together for the purpose of
plundering the Spaniards. They were now divided, the French and Dutch
being banded together against the English. The first collision in
the war took place, as might have been supposed, in the island of
St. Christopher. The French colonists had generally an advantage
over ours on these occasions. That want of industry which in the end
ruined their chance of establishing an empire in America, made them
more ready for martial adventure. In St. Christopher's it is said that
they were guilty of a breach of faith, a charge continually made and
retorted on both sides. It was probably produced on this occasion the
more readily, because the French gained an instantaneous and complete
success. The defeat of the English may be accounted for without having
recourse to the supposition of illegitimate manoeuvres on the part of
the French. The planters among the English were peaceful persons who
did not want to fight. They had some buccaneers, who were no doubt in
their way courageous, under the command of one William Morgan (not to
be confounded with the renowned Sir Henry Morgan); but these men, if
they were brave, were very drunken and undisciplined. There were also
some Irish, victims, no doubt, of the great exportations of the Civil
War, who are described by the narrator of these events as a bloody and
perfidious people, always hostile to the Protestant interest. It is
said they fired into the backs of the English while they were engaged
with the French in the front. The end of it was, that our colony was
destroyed, and the English wholly expelled from the island. Some of
them took refuge in Virginia, others fortified themselves in the island
of Nevis, and there contrived to hold out till they were relieved.
Little help came from Jamaica, where Modyford, the governor, could not
get that part of the population which was prepared to fight, to serve
against anybody but the Spaniards. But Lord Willoughby, who was again
governor of Barbadoes, exerted himself with energy, and appeals were
made for help from home.
The West Indian interest, though not so great as it afterwards became,
was highly important in London, and the Government made an effort to
afford the plantations relief. A squadron of ten ships, mostly, if not
all, merchant vessels, taken for the occasion and fitted as men-of-war,
was sent out under the command of Captain John Berry. Berry was a
Devonshire man, the son of a clergyman who had been expelled from his
living in the Civil War. He was bred to the sea in the West India
trade, and had entered the king's service in 1663 as boatswain of the
=Swallow=. First in that capacity, and then as lieutenant, he had seen
service against pirates in the West Indies. In this service he is said
to have distinguished himself, and although the story is of dubious
authority, it may be told for the excellent doctrine it contains.
The =Swallow= had been despatched in pursuit of a certain sea-rover,
and overtook him. The chase turned out to be a larger vessel than
the =Swallow=, and Berry's captain "rather hesitated to attack him,
expressing himself in the following words:--'Gentlemen, the blades we
are to attack are men-at-arms, old buccaneers, and superior to us in
number and in the force of their ship, and therefore I would have your
opinion.' Mr. Berry is reported to have immediately answered, 'Sir, we
are men-at-arms too, and, which is more, honest men, and fight under
the king's commission, and if you have no stomach for fighting, be
pleased to walk down into your cabin.'" The pirate was attacked and
taken. A man of whom such a story looked probable would not be wanting
in resolution. On his arrival in the West Indies, Berry exerted himself
to retaliate on the enemy for their success at St. Christopher's. He
succeeded in doing some real damage to the enemy, and in protecting
Nevis from attack; but although several French prizes were taken, and a
spirited action was fought with the allies, Berry could do little more
than keep them at bay till reinforcements arrived from England.
Harman had been appointed in March, but he cannot have sailed until
May. He went first to Barbadoes, and from thence to Nevis, where he
joined Berry. Their combined forces were apparently enough to overawe
the French and Dutch, who separated and left the English in command of
the sea. Harman would willingly have retaken St. Christopher's, but, as
the English had been expelled from the island, he had no help to expect
on shore. The other English plantations gave him no assistance, and
he had brought no troops from England. In these circumstances he was
confined to pushing the war against the enemy at sea, and fortunately
an opportunity presented itself. The French admiral had retired to
Martinique, and had withdrawn himself under the protection of some
forts. Their position was reconnoitred by the =Portsmouth= ketch and
reported to Harman, who, with the hearty agreement of his subordinates,
determined to attack. He reached Martinique on Monday 24th June, and
would have attacked at once, but the breezes are always treacherous
under the land in the West Indies. It fell calm before Harman could
get at the ships, though he was able to silence the forts. On Tuesday
morning the sea breeze was favourable, and he fell on. There is a
tradition that the admiral was so seriously ill with the gout as to be
unable to move, but in the excitement of battle he mastered his disease
so completely that it disappeared for a time. The forts having been
silenced, there was nothing to distract Harman's attention from the
ships, and he assailed them with such success that eight were burned,
including the admiral's vessel, and most of the others driven on shore.
This victory disposed of the French as active enemies at sea in the
West Indies for the time being, and Harman was left free to assail
the Dutch. Their posts were chiefly on the mainland of South America,
in Guiana, or on the islands off the coast of Cumana. Harman cruised
against them with great success during what remained of the war. The
proclamation of peace in July cut short his activity. He remained in
the West Indies for the protection of trade till the close of the year,
and then returned to England with a great convoy in January 1668.
Within a few weeks after Harman sailed on this successful expedition,
the country received a lesson, which it has fortunately never
forgotten, on the folly of supposing that cruises against an enemy's
commerce can ever compensate for the want of a force capable of meeting
his main fleet in battle. All through the early spring there had come
one report after another, that the Dutch were fitting out a great naval
force under Michael de Ruyter. The Court, however, learned no wisdom,
but continued to rely on its fortifications. Even if these had been
efficient, they would not have availed to avert a disaster, but the
work was done in the slovenly style common in this reign. The fort
at Sheerness, though begun in plenty of time, was not finished when
it was wanted, and was therefore not armed. Yet as late as the month
of May the Court was diminishing the crews of the few fireships that
were still kept in commission in the Thames. Meanwhile the Dutch were
resolved on a serious effort. Towards the end of May a squadron under
the command of Van Ghent was despatched to the coast of Scotland. Its
object was probably partly to protect Dutch commerce against Smith's
squadron, and partly to distract the attention of Charles's Government
in a more effectual fashion than his own. Van Ghent entered the Firth
of Forth, and, although he was beaten off in an attack on Burntisland,
and was unable to land at Leith, he did great injury to trade, and he
certainly gave a remarkable demonstration of the feebleness of the
Government. From the Firth of Forth Van Ghent sailed south to join De
Ruyter.
On the 1st of June the main Dutch fleet started on the cruise designed
to revenge Holland for the plunder of Terschelling in the previous
year. A storm scattered it on the 4th, but the ships were rapidly got
together again, and, on the 7th of June, Michael de Ruyter's fleet, now
seventy sail strong, was sighted off the North Foreland. The officers
commanding the forts on the coast, and the county magistrates, hurried
the news up to London; and then at last, when it was too late, when De
Ruyter was anchored at the Gunfleet, and an advance squadron had come
up the river as far as Gravesend, the Court woke up to the facts of
the case. If the honour of England had not been concerned, the ensuing
scene would have been comic in the highest degree. For once, and for
a moment, the Court was reduced to sobriety. The courtiers slunk away
by back doors, and the terrors of the Navy Office were dismal. Pepys,
we know, made his mind up that something dreadful was going to happen,
and that, if he and his colleagues were not thrown out as a sacrifice
to appease the mob, they might still be massacred in an explosion of
popular fury. He has described how he took his old father and his wife
into his wife's bedroom, and, having locked the door, informed them of
the perils accumulating on all hands. In the hopes of saving something
from impending ruin, the careful Pepys sent his father and wife off
to the country, with all his available ready money. If others of that
generation had been as much in the habit of making plenary confessions
to their diaries as was the Clerk of the Acts, we should probably
know that many such scenes were transacted during those days in the
neighbourhood of Whitehall.
The surprise of the nation, and its ignorance, made the danger seem
greater than it really was. Along with the well-founded report of De
Ruyter's appearance off the North Foreland, came stories of a French
army ready to be embarked for the invasion of England. This danger was
imaginary, because the King of England had entered on that course of
secret intrigue which ended by making him the vassal of his cousin. The
actual peril was rather that we should be insulted and injured than
invaded. It was fortunate that this was the case, for the Government
was utterly unprepared to deal even with the lesser peril in front of
it. It was not until the 10th of June, when De Ruyter's plans were
matured and his attacking force was ready, that what deserved to be
called measures of defence were taken. The London train bands were
called out, and the militia of the counties immediately threatened were
ordered to march down to the coast. The Court had, as usual, recourse
to the one man who was to be trusted in a crisis. Monk was ordered down
to Chatham. The militia and train bands must have in any case arrived
too late, and Monk only reached Chatham in order to be the helpless
eye-witness of a national disgrace.
He reached Rochester on the 11th. His long military experience and
his natural sagacity must have shown him at once that the case was
hopeless. A few soldiers of a Scotch regiment scattered between
Sheppey, Sheerness, and Chatham represented the sum-total of his
effective military resources. The officers seemed to have known
something of their business, and Pepys praises them for being men
of few words, and also, a very characteristic trait of the time, for
being content to ride about their duties on horseback, whereas Lord
Brouncker, one of the Navy Commissioners, would move only in a coach
and six. But the Scotch regiment was not numerous enough to prevent
a landing, and there was nothing else. The fireships were unmanned.
The workmen of the dockyards refused to render the slightest help.
Of eleven hundred who ought to have been present, only three were
forthcoming when Monk called upon them. In fact, neither in Chatham
nor in London itself could any man be found to do work except for
money down. The sailors openly rejoiced in the embarrassments of the
Government which had cheated them of their pay, and had fed them on
stinking food. Their wives collected round the Navy Office with their
husbands' unpaid tickets, and taunted Mr. Pepys and his colleagues. It
was universally believed that the Dutch fleet was full of Englishmen,
and, though there was no doubt some exaggeration in this, it has a
foundation in fact. In the second year of the war Parliament had found
it necessary to pass a special Act against Englishmen serving in the
States of Holland. It is a fact that English prisoners of war, who
might have been released, preferred to take service with the States.
They said that the punctual pay of the Dutch was better than the broken
promises of the King of England. Pepys has reported a story that when
the =Royal Charles= was taken possession of by the enemy, a number of
the men who boarded her were found to be English, who declared, in a
rude popular copy of the cynical tone of the Court, that they were
coming to present their pay tickets for payment.
On the 9th of June De Ruyter had sent a squadron up the Thames as far
as Gravesend. The merchant ships in the river fled up before it, and
there was nothing in the shape of an armed force to prevent Van Ghent
from coming on to London Bridge. But the wind fell, and on the turn
of the tide the Dutch officer was stopped. Calculating that, as the
advantage of surprise had been lost, London would prove too strong to
be attacked, De Ruyter recalled his subordinate, and decided to be
satisfied with the taking of Chatham. On the 10th of June he entered
the Medway, after battering down the half-finished fort at Sheerness
with the utmost ease. The command of the fort and of the fireships
had been given to a naval officer, Sir Edward Spragge, who made all
the fight that was possible in the circumstances. The sailors and a
detachment of the Scotch regiment under his orders stood their ground
in the fort till the Dutch cannon had battered it about their ears,
and fell back when the enemy landed to storm. A great magazine of
naval stores, and fifteen guns, fell into the hands of the enemy. It
must be recorded, to the honour of the Dutch, that, although they had
received provocation which might have been held to justify reprisals
in the burning of Terschelling, they did no injury whatever to private
property, but contented themselves with carrying off the stores
belonging to the Crown, which were fair prizes of war. During the 11th
they were engaged in working up the Medway. In the meantime Monk had
been desperately endeavouring to arrange a defence. A great iron chain
working on pulleys on either side of the stream had been prepared
in Gillingham Reach, for the purpose of stopping such an attack as
the Dutch were now about to make. The fact that the chain had been
provided is one of many proofs that the Government was not taken by
surprise by the Dutch invasion, but was only utterly mistaken in its
estimate of effective measures. The chain was drawn across the river
not without difficulty, and five or six vessels were anchored behind
it in order to support it by their fire. There were also two trifling
batteries, one at either end. In the dockyard there was nothing but
panic and confusion, the unpaid men refusing to serve, and the higher
officials running away with their private property. They, with Mr.
Commissioner Pett at their head, took all the available boats, and
thereby deprived Monk of his best means of removing the men-of-war
lying at their moorings in the dockyard farther up the river. When Pett
was afterwards called to account for his conduct on this occasion, he
caused some laughter by saying that he considered it his duty to save
his models, and was sure that the Dutch would rather have them than
any of the king's ships. If the enemy had been aware of the little
value of the means of resistance collected against them, they would
probably have shown less hesitation in attacking than they did. The
command on the spot was left to Van Ghent. De Ruyter and the delegate,
Cornelius de Witt, remained outside with the bulk of the fleet. Van
Ghent gave the command of the ships appointed to break the chain to
Captain Brackel. Our ancestors consoled their national vanity by
inventing a story that the enterprise was considered so dangerous that
it was not undertaken until this officer, who was in disgrace at the
time, volunteered on it as on a forlorn hope, in order to re-establish
himself in favour. In point of fact, the difficulties in the way of
the Dutch were wholly caused by the intricate navigation of the river,
not by any strength of armed opposition. On the 12th of June, Brackel,
having with him some frigates and several fireships, came on with the
flood-tide, and steered straight at the chain. The first fireship hung
on the obstruction, the weight of a second snapped the chain, and then
the Dutch poured through. The English ships nearest this barrier were
immediately set on fire. Three of them, the =Unity=, the =Amity=, and
the =Mathias=, or, as it is called in the Dutch account, the =Honingen
Castle=, were prizes taken by us in the war. They were vessels of some
size, and with them were some lighter craft which shared their fate.
While Brackel was burning the ships at the chain, Monk was doing all
that lay in his power to save the vessels lying farther up the river.
The panic of Mr. Commissioner Pett and his brother officers, aided as
it was by the mutinous discontent of the men, made it impossible for
the Lord General to move the greater ships farther up the river. One of
these was the =Royal Charles=. She had carried the Duke of York's flag
in the battle of Lowestoft, and Monk himself had been in her in the
Four Days' Battle. This vessel now fell into the hands of the Dutch.
She had only thirty of her guns mounted, and could only have been saved
by flight, and, as there were no means of towing her farther up the
Medway, flight was impossible. She was run aground, and then her crew
escaped to the shore. The Dutch sent out boats which took possession
of the deserted vessel, and she was dragged off. Monk sank the =Royal
James=, the =Royal Oak=, and the =Loyal London=.
When the tide turned, the Dutch fell back and anchored. There were
hopes that the interval might be utilised for the purpose of blocking
the river. In the account which he afterwards gave to the House of
Commons of the miscarriage of the war, Monk pleaded that he had sunk
three vessels in what he was told was the only passage by which the
Dutch could come farther up, but that he was misinformed, and that they
actually made their way up by another. It is very unsafe to rely on the
evidence of men who were probably in confusion at the time, and who
afterwards had strong motives for disguising the truth. Monk indeed was
by nature courageous and phlegmatic, and not the man to lose his head,
but he probably had no great scruple in excusing himself by throwing
the blame on others. Wherever the responsibility for the failure may
rest, it is certain that on the following day the Dutch returned with
the tide and passed up to Upnor Castle, which it had been hoped would
stop them by its fire, without the slightest difficulty and with very
little loss. They found the upper works of the =Royal James=, =Royal
Oak=, and =Loyal London= standing out of the water, and immediately set
them on fire. Then, when the tide again turned, they once more fell
down the river, their trumpeters playing the air called "Joan's placket
is torn," which it was at that time a custom of the sea to play, for
the purpose of glorifying over a beaten enemy.
The loss of seven large ships burnt or captured, of an uncertain number
of smaller craft destroyed or taken, and of the stores in the magazines
at Sheerness, was far from representing the whole extent of the injury
inflicted by the Dutch. For six weeks after they retired from Chatham
they remained completely masters of the mouth of the Thames and of
the southern and eastern coasts of England. The enemies of the house
of De Witt complained that more had not been done. It was alleged
that but for the want of spirit of the delegate, Cornelius de Witt,
the dockyard at Chatham might have been completely destroyed, and
London itself attacked. But it does not appear that the fleet carried
any considerable body of troops, and, as the militia were rapidly
collecting on the English coast, it would have been rash to land small
parties. The Dutch naval officers, too, must have been aware that a
certain risk was run by remaining among the shallows of the Thames.
Two or three of their vessels were stranded and lost. Ample damage
could be done to England, and ample humiliation inflicted on her pride,
without running hazards for which there was no adequate object. De
Ruyter withdrew his advance squadron to the Gunfleet and established
a blockade of the river. The terror of his presence continued to work
in London for some time. Even after he had withdrawn from the Medway,
vessels were sunk in the upper reaches of the Thames to obstruct the
navigation, in case he should return. The king and the Duke of York
were themselves seen below the bridges directing these operations; and
so great was the flurry of the navy officers that they actually sank
a transport laden with naval stores to the value of several thousand
pounds belonging to our own fleet. De Ruyter did not return; and it was
fortunate he did not, for there was neither sense nor unity of will at
headquarters, and in the subordinate ranks there was only discontent,
and a bitter, jeering gratification over the enemy's success. Pepys,
whose invaluable evidence meets us at every turn, tells us that even
at this moment the king's officers were thinking every man of himself.
Nobody would take the trouble to do more than he was compelled to do.
The Ordnance Department, for instance, when called upon to supply
powder to the fireships, would only send the materials for making
it--though, to be sure, we cannot, with our still fresh recollection
of the Crimean War and the feats of the Government departments at that
time, attribute this necessarily to corruption or discontent. It was
perhaps only what is practically nearly as mischievous as either of
them--and that is red-tape.
The Dutch made an attack on the Landguard Fort below Harwich, but were
beaten off. Then De Ruyter, leaving Van Ghent to blockade the Thames,
sailed along the Channel as far as Plymouth without meeting any English
force to oppose him, or, so great was the panic, any number of English
merchant ships at sea. The desperate exertions of the Government did
at last succeed in collecting a squadron of frigates and fireships in
the Thames under the command of Sir Edward Spragge. Some very vague and
inconclusive skirmishing, out of which our national vanity strove hard
to make a victory, took place between Sir Edward and Van Ghent, but the
Dutch fleet was cruising unimpeded in our waters at the end of July,
when a messenger brought the news of the signing of the Peace of Breda.