A Short History of the Royal Navy, 1217 to 1688

by David Hannay

Between the date when he returned to face Tromp and that on which he sailed westward to replace Ayscue, Blake had been called upon to dispose of a little war with France. The Commonwealth was not exactly in a state of open hostility with the French king, but it had grounds of complaint against his officers. They had helped Rupert, and, taking advantage of the supposed weakness of the revolutionary Government in England, they had plundered the ships of the Smyrna Company. On the other hand, Spain had on the whole been friendly. As it happened in the early days of September that the Spanish governor of the Low Countries was endeavouring to regain possession of the towns of Dunkirk and Mardyke, then held by French garrisons, and as a French naval force, commanded by the Duc de Vendôme, was on its way to relieve the French soldiers, the Commonwealth saw an opportunity of delivering a blow at those who had attempted to harass England. Blake fell upon the Duc de Vendôme, took seven of his vessels, and scattered the others. The French Government complained, and the Council of State ordered an inquiry. But it gave no satisfaction, and for the present the incident passed over among the many other violent and irregular transactions of the time. The besieged towns surrendered to the Spaniards, and remained in their hands until, by a strange change of fortune, they passed into those of the Protector Cromwell.

A day or two after he had been disappointed of an encounter with De Ruyter, Vice-Admiral Penn rejoined Blake outside of Torbay. The reunited English ships followed the Dutch up the Channel, but failed to overtake them. De Ruyter effected his junction with Cornelius de With, and together they saw the convoys safe back into port; then, having provided for the trade, they returned to the coast of England to menace the English fleet.

On the 27th of September, Blake, who was at anchor in the Downs, was informed that the Dutch had made their appearance to the northward. He at once put to sea. On the following day the English fleet was very scattered. The van, under the command of Penn, and a part of the centre, including Blake's flagship, were together, stretching across the mouth of the estuary of the Thames. Part of the centre and the rear had not yet succeeded in getting clear out of the Downs. The wind was W. by N. While the English fleet was in this scattered condition, the look-out ships of Penn's squadron found the Dutch to the eastward, and leeward of the Kentish Knock, the farthest out of the shallows on the coast of Essex and Suffolk. The English ships had worked to windward, and had the weather-gage—that is to say, the power of bearing right down on the enemy with the wind behind them. Penn, as ready, if we are to believe his own report, to engage a superior enemy as he had been a month before near Bolt Head, asked Blake's leave to attack. He was told to wait until the rest of the fleet came up, and therefore stretched ahead of his commander-in-chief, leaving a sufficient space for his division to fall into line between him and Blake. In the course of stretching out, he came too near the Kentish Knock, on which his own flagship and two others touched. He found it necessary to tack, and as he must have been standing to the N. before, this would bring him round so that he headed south. In the meantime Blake had been joined by the remaining ships of the centre and rear, and held on his course to the north, passing well clear of the Knock to leeward. The Dutch had been lying to in a line, stretched from N. to S. As Blake stood on to the north, they filled, and passed on his lee side, heading to the south. While the two lines were passing one another and cannonading as they went past, the van, under the command of Penn, was heading more or less in the same direction as the Dutch, but on the other side of Blake's ships. Thus, when the Dutch cleared the centre and rear of the English fleet, the van, which had been moving in the same direction, fell, in Penn's words, "pat to receive them," and stayed by them till night. We must suppose that the centre and rear of the English fleet either tacked or wore together and fell into line behind Penn.

The action was far from decisive. On the English side the leaders did nothing to lose the supposed advantage of the weather-gage, by endeavouring to break through the Dutch line, and so put themselves between the enemy and his refuge in Holland. They were content to remain to windward, cannonading, and perhaps attempting to make use of their fireships. On the other hand, the Dutch fighting was not worthy of its reputation. Their fleet was, if anything, rather superior in number to the English. But they were divided by violent party and professional jealousies. The friends of Tromp were hostile to his successors, Cornelius de With and Michael de Ruyter. It is said that the crew of the Brederode refused to allow De With to hoist his flag in her. Some of the captains, who were probably merchant skippers taken into the war fleet, according to the custom which prevailed also among ourselves, showed downright cowardice, and Cornelius de With was provoked into saying that some of them would find there was wood enough in Holland to make a gallows. It is clear that only the late hour at which the action began, and the approach of darkness, saved the Dutch fleet from a serious disaster. If the English leaders had steered through the Dutch line from windward to leeward, and had put themselves on the enemy's line of retreat, a long list of prizes would have been brought into English ports. But though our admirals in this war were always ready to break the line from leeward to windward, they seem to have avoided the other and much more effective movement. When night fell, the Dutch were allowed to retreat with comparatively trifling loss. We asserted, indeed, that several of them had been sunk, but no reliance is to be placed on statements of that kind. Nothing is more common than to find men asserting that they had sunk an enemy, when in fact they had only lost sight of him in the smoke. Next morning the Dutch were in sight to the eastward, and, the wind having shifted in the night, they had now the weather-gage. Blake endeavoured to renew the action, but Cornelius de With and De Ruyter, having no confidence in their fleet, retreated to their own ports. The English followed till they had sight of the Dutch coast, and then, finding that the enemy was beyond their reach, returned to the Downs.

Our easy victory proved somewhat misleading. Thinking that the enemy was fairly beaten, the English Government relaxed its precautions. A considerable part of the fleet was despatched, under the command of Penn, to convoy the colliers who carried London's supply of fuel from the northern ports. During the whole of October and the greater part of November all seemed quiet, and Blake lay in the Downs with no more than forty ships. But the Dutch were preparing for a vigorous counter-stroke. Finding that Martin Tromp was the only man who could be trusted to make their fleet do its duty, the States General decided to restore him to the command. At the same time, great efforts were made to collect a powerful force. There was, indeed, need for exertion. The outward-bound convoys had to be seen clear of the Channel, and, in order that this could be done, it was necessary to collect a force capable of dealing with the main English fleet. As November drew to its close, this had been achieved. On the 29th of the month, Tromp made his appearance at "the back of the Goodwins," that is to say, between the Sands and the coast of France, with eighty warships, and behind him a convoy of merchant vessels. With a reduced force under his orders, Blake was really incapable of preventing his enemy from carrying his convoy through the Straits, but, with the high spirit which the Commonwealth's commanders seldom failed to display, he made a resolute effort to do the impossible. He weighed anchor and stood out. The wind at first was at S.W., which gave the weather-gage to Blake, while making it impossible for Tromp to take his great swarm of men-of-war and merchant ships round the South Foreland. Then it chopped suddenly and violently round to the N.W., and both fleets anchored before night—Blake in Dover Roads, and Tromp some three leagues farther out. Next morning the wind was less violent, though still from the same point. Both fleets weighed anchor. Tromp steered to carry his convoy into the Channel, keeping his warships carefully between the merchant ships and the English. Blake followed, taking care not to lose the weather-gage, and the two fleets swept on together until they were in the neighbourhood of Dungeness. The odds against him were so great that Blake would have been well justified in avoiding action. But a council of war held in the flagship had decided that something must be attempted. Our fleet had not yet been cured of the rashness already shown by Sir George Ayscue in act, and by Penn in intention. The lesson they were about to receive was very much needed, and it was part of our fortune in this war that it did not prove more severe. In the course of the afternoon of Tuesday the 30th of November, the forty English ships under the command of Blake forced an action with Tromp's eighty. As they held and kept the weather-gage, they escaped complete destruction, but they were severely cut up, and two, the Garland and the Bonaventure, fell into the possession of the enemy. These two vessels, commanded by Captains Axon and Batten, had the audacity to attach themselves to Tromp's flagship. They were promptly surrounded and overpowered. The attempt which Blake made to rescue them was unsuccessful, and as the English ships were unwilling to lose the weather-gage, they could do little more than look on and cannonade from a distance, while the two which had pushed into the midst of the enemy suffered for their excess of daring. Night again put an end to the battle. The English first anchored near Dover, and then returned to the Downs. Tromp saw his convoy out of the Channel, and then cruised up and down threatening our coast, and waiting for the home-coming merchant ships.

Blake returned to the Downs chastened and even a little depressed by the failure of his attempt to defeat Tromp with insufficient forces. He offered to resign his command. The Council of State did not take him at his word. On the contrary, they assured him of their continued confidence, and left him entire discretion as to his movements, while making every effort to strengthen his fleet. They began by taking measures to enforce discipline and a proper martial spirit amongst their captains. Blake had complained "that there was much baseness of spirit, not among the merchantmen only, but many of the State's ships," and he had asked for a committee of inquiry. This request was instantly complied with. Colonel Walton, Colonel Morley, and Mr. Chalmer were sent down at once, not only to make a general inquiry into the action and the condition of the fleet, but to order a trial of those captains whose baseness of spirit had provoked the anger of the admiral. Several of them were ordered for trial. Blake's own brother, Benjamin, was removed from his command. As Benjamin Blake was afterwards employed, and as the other three captains were only fined, it is to be presumed that their conduct had not been very bad. The truth probably is, that if all the captains had been as headlong as Axon and Batten, more of them would have shared the same fate.

More effectual measures than the punishment of backward captains were the recall of Penn from the north, and the commissioning of fresh ships. It was not easy to find the men. Blake had complained in his first despatch that the great number of "private men-of-war," that is, privateers, allowed to cruise against Dutch commerce, served to draw men off from the fleet. The sailors preferred the licence of the privateer, and the opportunities for plunder it presented, to the sterner discipline of the man-of-war. In the out-ports, too, it was difficult to enforce the press. The magistrates were frequently shipowners, who were unwilling to lose the crews of their own vessels, and, when they were not, they had a fellow-sympathy with their townsmen, which made them languid in the discharge of their duties. In spite of the efforts made by the Commonwealth Government to tempt men by promises of better pay and a larger share of prize-money, it was compelled to make unsparing use of the old prerogatives of the Crown, to force all subjects to take a share in defending the realm. Even this did not suffice. Soldiers in large numbers had to be drafted into the fleet to serve as marines, although that word was not in use. There can be no doubt that these men were intended to make good the want of sailors, for it was especially provided that they were to be called upon to do the same work as far as possible.

Throughout the December of 1652 and January and February of 1653, Tromp rode unmolested in the Channel. It was at this time that, according to a legend for which there is not much foundation, he hoisted a broom at his mainmast top as the outward and visible sign of his intention to sweep the Channel. So little did the Council of State feel capable of opposing him with a sufficient naval force during the earlier part of these three months, that it sent off officers to the south coast to remove the lights and buoys, in order to make it dangerous for the Dutch to approach the shore. In fact, both the Government and its admirals had learned that if the Dutch were to be fairly beaten off, a competent force must be collected, and it must act together. To strengthen the command, Deane was called back from Scotland, and Monk was named to fill up the vacancy left by the death of Popham. These two, with Blake, formed the Commission to discharge the office of Lord High Admiral commanding at sea. Penn was continued in his place as Vice-Admiral, but Bourne was removed from active service to direct the dockyard at Harwich, and his place at sea was taken by John Lawson, who had gained a high reputation for skill and courage as a captain. These two may be said to have served as Nautical Assessors to the three soldiers who were entrusted with the general military direction of the fleet.

Towards the middle of February the whole of the naval forces on both sides moved down Channel—Tromp to wait off the Land's End for the Dutch convoys, and the English to wait for and fall upon him as he came back to the eastward.

On the 18th of February the two fleets came in sight of one another some fifteen miles off Portland. The wind was from the west, and was light. Tromp had from eighty to ninety men-of-war with him, and behind them a great flock of merchant ships. The English, numbering from seventy to eighty ships, were to eastward and leeward, and were much scattered. Only the smaller part of them were together, under the immediate direction of the generals at sea—Blake and Deane. The major part were at some distance to the eastward. Seeing the comparative weakness and the isolation of the part of the English fleet nearest him, Tromp took the energetic and intelligent decision to fall upon them at once. Blake and Deane did not flinch, and a hot engagement, in which the English were roughly handled, took place in the early afternoon. Three of the English ships were taken by the Dutch, but the enemy was not able to carry them off. While the ships immediately exposed to attack were engaged, the rest of the fleet to leeward was working up. About four o'clock it had gained a position which would have enabled it to weather the Dutch line, and thus put Tromp between two fires. To avoid this danger, the Dutch admiral tacked his fleet together, and worked to windward—a sufficiently clear proof that the fleets of the time did not fight in a disorderly swarm, but were perfectly capable of manœuvring together in obedience to signals. The three ships which had fallen into the hands of the Dutch were retaken, but a fourth vessel, the Sampson, was found to be so severely shattered, and had lost so many men, including her captain, that it was decided to withdraw the survivors and let her sink. During the evening the English were busy taking men out of the smaller ships to fill up the vacancies caused by death and wounds in the larger, and refitting their damaged rigging. During the night both made their way eastward, within sight of one another's lights, the English on the north side of the Channel, then next them the Dutch men-of-war keeping guard over the merchant ships, which sailed between them and the coast of France.