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.