Note 186 — Chapter V

There is no doubt that in this raid on the English coast the Dutch were successful in doing a great amount of damage to the English marine; but at the same time more credit is due than has been usually given to Sir Edward Spragge, who, on two successive days, with only a small force of five frigates and seventeen fire-ships, repulsed the Dutch fleet under Van Nes, though on the first he was compelled to fall back for a few hours under the guns of Tilbury Fort. Van Nes had been sent by De Ruyter to force his way up the Thames, and Spragge deserves to be recorded as the English admiral who stopped his further advance (Cust, vol. ii. p. 391). There is at Hampton Court an original painting by Vandevelde of the later action of August 1673, in which Spragge was drowned.