Monk's fleet sailing in line ahead, the only order in which it could traverse the narrow channels, would cover about nine miles from van to rear. There were then no accurate charts of the Thames estuary such as we now possess, and the pilots of the time believed the possible ways out for large ships to be fewer and more restricted than we know them to be at present. They advised Monk to take his fleet out from the Nore through the Warp and the West Swin, which form a continuous, fairly deep channel on the Essex side of the estuary along the outer edge of the Maplin Sands. At the outer end of the Maplins a long, narrow sandbank, known as the Middle Ground, with only a few feet of water over it at low tide, divides the channel into two parallel branches, the East Swin and the Middle Deep. At the end of the Middle Ground these two channels and a third (known as the Barrow Deep) unite to form the broad King's Channel (also known as the East Swin), where there is plenty of sea room, and presently this again expands into the open sea.
In those old days of sailing-ships a fleet working its way out of the narrower channels inside the Middle Deep in presence of an enemy would court destruction if the whole of its fighting strength could not be brought out into the wide waters of the King's Channel on a single tide. If only part of it got out before the tide turned, the van might be destroyed during the long hours of waiting for the rearward ships to get out and join in.
On 19 July Monk brought his ships out to the Middle Ground, beside which they remained anchored in a long line till the 21st, waiting for a favourable wind and a full tide. The ebb flows fast through the narrows from west to east, and weighing shortly before high water on the 22nd, the fleet spread all sail to a fair wind, and led by the "Royal Charles" with Monk and Rupert on her quarter-deck, the long procession of heavy battleships worked out into King's Channel, soon helped by a racing ebb. Those who saw the sight said that no finer spectacle had ever been witnessed on the seas, and certainly England had never till then challenged battle with a more powerful fleet. Officers and men were in high spirits and confident of victory, Rupert as eager as when in his younger days he led his wild charges of cavaliers, Monk impatient with prudent counsels urged by timid pilots, and using sharp, strong language to encourage them to take risks which he as a landsman did not appreciate. Not a ship touched ground. Some Dutch ships were sighted on the look-out off the edge of the Gunfleet, but they drew off when Captain Elliot, in the "Revenge," led a squadron of nine ships-of-the-line and some fireships to attack them. De Ruyter, who had been waiting with his main fleet off the Naze, stood out to sea, having no intention of beginning a battle till there were long hours of daylight before him. As the sun went down the English fleet anchored in the seaward opening of the King's Channel, with the "Royal Charles" near the buoy that marked the outer end of the Gunfleet Sands, and on both sides men turned in with the expectation of hard fighting next morning.
At daybreak the English fleet weighed anchor. The Dutch fleet was seen some miles to seaward and more to the south, sailing in three divisions in line ahead. Evertszoon was in command of the van; De Ruyter of the centre; Van Tromp of the rear. There were more than a hundred sail. Monk stood towards them before a light breeze, challenging battle in the fashion of the time with much sounding of trumpets and beating of drums. But De Ruyter kept his distance, working to the southward outside the tangle of shallows in the Thames estuary. All day the fleets drifted slowly, keeping out of gunshot range. Towards evening the wind fell to a sullen calm with a cloudy sky, and Monk and De Ruyter both anchored outside the Long Sand. After sunset there came a summer storm, vivid flashes of lightning, heavy thunder-peals, and wild, tempestuous gusts of wind. The anchors held, but Monk lost one of his best ships, the "Jersey." She was struck by lightning, which brought down a mass of spars and rigging on her decks, and so crippled her that she had to leave the fleet at dawn.
The Dutch fleet had disappeared. De Ruyter had weighed anchor during the storm and run out to sea. Monk suspected that he had gone back to his old cruising ground off the Naze, and when the wind fell and the weather cleared up in the afternoon of the 24th he weighed and sailed for the end of the Gunfleet to look for the enemy in that neighbourhood. He found no trace of him, and anchored again off the Gunfleet that evening, getting under way again at two in the morning of the 25th.
De Ruyter's light craft had kept him informed of Monk's movements. The Dutch admiral had avoided battle, when it was first offered, because he hoped to manœuvre for the weather gage, but the failing wind before the storm had made it hopeless to attempt to work to windward of the English. At a council of war held on board De Ruyter's flagship on the evening of the 24th it was decided to accept battle next day, even if the Dutch had to fight to leeward. When the sun rose the two fleets were in sight, "eight leagues off the Naze," De Ruyter in his old position to seaward and southward of Monk.
The English "general at sea" had ninety-two battleships and seventeen fireships at his disposal. Following the custom of the time, the English was, like the Dutch fleet, organized in three divisions. The van, distinguished by white ensigns, was commanded by Sir Thomas Allen; the centre, or red division, flew the red ensign (now the flag of our merchant marine), and was under the personal command of Monk and Rupert; the rear, under Sir Jeremy Smith, flew the blue ensign. Battles at sea were now beginning to be fought under formal rules which soon developed into a system of pedantic rigidity. It was a point of honour that van should encounter van; centre, centre; and rear, rear. The Dutch were moving slowly under shortened sail in line ahead to the south-east of the English. Monk formed his fleet in line abreast on the port tack. The orders were that as they closed with the enemy the ships were to bear up on to a course parallel to that of the Dutch and engage in line ahead, division to division and broadside to broadside. Training cruises and fleet manœuvres were still things of a far-off future, and the ships of Monk's three divisions were all unequal in speed and handiness, so the manœuvre was not executed with the machine-like regularity of a modern fleet. The van and centre came into action fairly together, but the rearward ships straggled into position, and Tromp was able to give some of the first comers a severe hammering before their consorts came into action and relieved them of some of the brunt of his fire.
The first shots had been fired between nine and ten a.m. Till after two in the afternoon there was a close engagement, a steady, well-sustained cannonade, with no attempt at manœuvring on either side, the fleets drifting slowly before the light wind, wrapped in powder smoke, in the midst of which both sides made attempts to use their fireships against each other. The only success was secured by the Dutch, who set the "Resolution" ablaze. She drifted out of the line and burned to the water's edge after her crew had abandoned her. There was heavy loss of life in both fleets.
For want of anything but the most rudimentary system of signalling, admirals had little control of a fight once it was begun. Monk, in the "Royal Charles," had to content himself with marking out De Ruyter's flagship, the "Seven Provinces," as his immediate opponent, and fighting a prolonged duel with her. He walked his quarter-deck chewing tobacco, a habit he had acquired as a precaution against infection during the London plague. He spoke at the outset with undeserved contempt of his opponent. "Now," he said, "you shall see this fellow come and give me two broadsides and then run." But De Ruyter's broadsides thundered for hour after hour. However, the dogged persistency of the Dutch was met with persistent courage as steady as their own.
London listened anxiously to the far-off rumbling of the cannonade on the North Sea waters. Mr. Pepys went to Whitehall and found the Court "gone to chapel, it being St. James's Day." Then he tells how—