Chapter XII · 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 manœuvres 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 manœuvre; 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 manœuvre 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 manœuvres 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.