CHAPTER XI
THE SECOND DUTCH WAR TO THE FOUR DAYS' BATTLE
Authorities.—The State Papers, which are very fully copied in the Calendars for these years, are by far the best authorities for the events of the second. The official narrative of the battle of Lowestoft published by the Government, and drawn up by the Duke of York's secretary, Sir W. Coventry, is printed in the Life of Penn. A very full account of the Four Days' Battle by a French eyewitness is to be found in the Memoirs of the Comte de Guiche. Clarendon gives the fullest account of the transactions at Bergen. Captain Mahan's Sea Power in History and Admiral Colomb's Naval Warfare now become inestimable, and Pepys, it is needless to say, indispensable. Brandt's Life of De Ruyter, the Life of Cornelius van Tromp, and M. de Pontalis' Jean de Witt give the Dutch side.
If proof were wanted that the Dutch were not prepared for war, it might be found in the length of time they allowed to the English Government to get its fleet ready for sea. The cruise of Sir Robert Holmes would have been more than sufficient provocation to a Power really in search of a pretext for hostilities. Yet the Dutch let a year pass, and even then did not fight until they were attacked, for it must be remembered that the counter-cruise of De Ruyter was strictly limited to the ground already covered by Holmes, or to reprisals in the colonies. If John de Witt and his party had been really disposed for a new struggle with England, it would have been easy for them to attack her at home while unprepared. Unprepared she was until the early months of 1665. Happily, the Dutch were not in a better case. The commercial oligarchy had sacrificed everything to economy, and their fighting fleet was not ready. Therefore the English Government was allowed time to fit out its armaments.
It needed every hour which the delay of its enemy allowed. Even as late as November 1664 the total force of the English fleet ready, or being made ready, for sea was only this: On the coast of Ireland there were three vessels. Thirteen were stationed in the Straits of Gibraltar. One was on duty at Tangier. The convoy to the Newfoundland fishery employed two, which, with the three assigned to New England, and two at Jamaica, made seven vessels on the coast of America. There were three on the Guinea Coast of Africa, one was in the Medway, one on transport duty, one in the East Indies, fourteen with Prince Rupert in the North Sea, and twenty-four in the Channel. These ships, sixty-six in all, were ready, but a third of them were not available for service in Europe. Thirty-seven others were being fitted for sea. When it is remembered that this was the state of things a year after the Government of King Charles had made an attack on the Dutch which must almost certainly lead to war, it will be obvious that if England was unprepared it was because her rulers were wanting in foresight, and if the Dutch were not ready it was because they had not been casting about for an excuse for a quarrel.
It was, in truth, not easy to fit out a fleet on the scale required for a struggle with Holland. Parliament was indeed enthusiastic for the war, and could supply the money. The £243,000 and odd required to victual 20,000 men for a year were easily voted, and were not difficult to raise among the merchants of the city, but to get the men and to equip the ships required more than money. The difficulty of finding men was immense. The press, though no doubt a powerful instrument of coercion, did not work satisfactorily in the hands to which it was entrusted. Corruption had already made way so far that the officials entrusted with the duty of levying the sailors were vehemently suspected of taking bribes to allow all who could afford to pay them to escape. It was only the more miserable who were taken. Peter Pett, the Commissioner of the Dockyard at Chatham, wrote to complain at the end of the year of "those pitiful pressed creatures, who are fit for nothing but to fill the ships full of vermin." At about the same time, the Duke of York at Portsmouth was complaining that no men could be found there, and that, unless men could be sent down from the Thames, some of his vessels must be left behind, or all of them must go to sea short-handed. Even when the men had been obtained, it was difficult to keep them. The duke complained that upwards of two hundred men had deserted in a few days. Furious threats of punishment to be inflicted for desertion were issued by the Admiralty, and the seamen were told that they would be hanged as an example if they dared to desert. All this coercion appeared of very little use, and the Government of the king was reduced, like the Council of State of the Commonwealth, to pass Acts for the encouragement of seamen—in other words, to give them promises of security for prize-money. These produced some effect. At the same time, the king suspended the Navigation Acts which compelled a shipowner to man his vessels with Englishmen. This became in time the usual preliminary to a great war, for there were not enough seamen in England to man both the trading and the fighting fleet of the country when this latter was on a war-footing. The Government was so hard pressed that it made great efforts to secure Scotch sailors, but the measure did not prove wholly satisfactory. It was doubtful whether Scotch seamen could be lawfully pressed by the king in England. The war caused serious loss to the trade of the east coast of Scotland with the Continent, and as Scotchmen did not consider themselves concerned in the colonial quarrels of England, they were deeply aggrieved. Numbers of them undoubtedly fought in the Dutch fleets, where their pay was secure, which was far from being the case in the fleet of their own king. However, the Act for the encouragement of seamen produced a good effect, and by the spring of 1665 a really powerful fleet had been got together.
While the main fleets were getting ready at home, hostilities were being pursued abroad. The fleet in the Straits, meaning what we should now call the Mediterranean Squadron, was under the command of Captain Thomas Allen, an old Royalist seaman who had served with Prince Rupert. Allen had succeeded Lawson in command of the force appointed to protect our Levant trade against the Algerine pirates. In this work he had had some success, having on one occasion captured no less than five pirate cruisers. But the approach of war with Holland called him off from this duty. He withdrew from the centre of the Mediterranean and stationed himself in the Straits. Here he lay in wait for the Dutch. Allen's orders were as contradictory as was to be expected, considering that they were given by a Government which wanted to enjoy the incompatible advantages of making war on another, and yet of not declaring itself in open hostility. He was told that he might attack the Dutch men-of-war, or the Smyrna fleet, but not such of their vessels as came past in twos and threes. The meaning of the distinction is not very obvious. Allen also complained that he was not allowed to attack the Dutch in Spanish ports, which throws a light on the opinion entertained by naval officers of the time as to what constituted neutrality. His operations were not at first very successful. While pursuing what he calls a Dutch fleet, and what was no doubt a convoy of merchant ships, he ran several of his squadron of nine ships on shore, where two of them were totally lost. The others were got off, and on the 19th December 1664 Allen was consoled for this misfortune. He fell in with the Dutch Smyrna convoy proceeding home under protection of three men-of-war. It consisted of fourteen sail in all. Allen at once attacked with his remaining seven vessels, sunk two of the Dutch, and captured two of the others. One of the two prizes was a rich vessel from Smyrna. The Dutch vessels which escaped destruction or capture fled into Cadiz. This operation in the later stages of our history would have attracted little or no attention, but it passed at that time for a considerable achievement, and was even, for the greater glory of the nation, very much exaggerated. The fourteen Dutch vessels were swollen out to forty. We were not, in truth, so honestly persuaded of our superiority to the Dutch that we could afford to make light of any success gained against them, or to abstain, it may be added, from mere vulgar boasting.