A Short History of the Royal Navy, 1217 to 1688

by David Hannay

The turbulence of the House of Commons during the sessions of 1667, 1668, and 1669 had unquestionably a large share in inducing the king to enter into this secret agreement. In 1667 the House was in the first flush of its anger against the mismanagement which had led to the final disasters of the war. It was intent on paring down the expenses of government, and insisted both on apportioning the fixed revenue for definite purposes, and on inquiring into the spending of the money voted for the war. It was no less resolute in voting against a standing army, which the king was endeavouring to form, and against Popery, which he was dimly suspected to favour. Popular fury was for a time diverted into a clamour against Clarendon, who was driven from office and the country. But when the House met in February 1668, it was found to be intent as ever on investigating the miscarriages of the war. Peter Pett, the Commissioner of the Chatham Dockyard, and Sir William Penn were both called before the House and threatened with impeachment on a long string of charges. The Commons called for and received a long apologetic statement from Monk. The proceedings against Penn and Pett fell through, and Pepys contrived to make a plausible case for the Navy Office, but the House was in so dangerous a humour that the king did not dare to cross it openly. The war had left him embarrassed with debt, and it was soon made clear that, until the House was satisfied that there would be better management in future, it would not vote a penny for the relief of the king's necessities. The pressure thus applied to him drove the king at last to promise that supply should be collected and issued for those purposes, and by such persons only as the House of Commons should think fit. He agreed, in fact, to the demand of Parliament to be allowed to appropriate its votes to particular services. The concession was really great, but the Commons still refused to relieve the king, and continued to insist on retrenchments and the regulation of the revenue. In desperation the king prorogued the House, and did not summon it again for nearly a year and a half. At last want of money drove him to call Parliament together in October 1669. It was not found that this interval of delay had produced any reduction in the passions of the members of the Lower House. Once more they went into the abuses in the accounts, and they expelled Sir George Carteret, who had been Treasurer of the Navy. These incessant attacks, which, though nominally directed against his servants, were in reality aimed at himself, made the king long more eagerly for a release from an intolerable position. He found a body of courtiers who were prepared to assist him in carrying out his policy of alliance with France against Holland. The members of this informal council were called the Cabal, a word originally only applied to what we now call a Cabinet. It happened, oddly enough, that the first letters of their names, Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale, spelt the word, and as their policy ended by becoming odious, an unfavourable sense was ever afterwards attached to the phrase. They were called "The Cabal," and the term became synonymous with everything that was unscrupulous and unpatriotic. With the help of these men, the king contrived so far to manage his Parliament in 1671 that it voted him something for the payment of his debts. As the intrigue with Louis XIV. was ripe just at this moment, the money voted by the House came at a convenient time. It was, however, not sufficient, and probably would not have been if it had been spent with more care than was ever bestowed on the management of the king's revenue. When the time came to give active assistance to the King of France, it was found necessary to cast about for other resources. Charles dared not summon his Parliament and ask it for funds to help the aggressive Roman Catholic King of France to destroy a Protestant State. A way out of the difficulty was found by plundering the creditors of the Crown. When Parliament voted the king money, it was then the custom to raise the funds at once from the bankers, who advanced the money entrusted to them by their clients on the security of the revenue. They received 8 per cent. for the accommodation, and were accustomed to pay their own clients 6—the difference was their profit. Of course one result of this method of managing the revenue was, that as the taxes came in they were paid over to the bankers. If the money advanced by the capitalists had been wasted so soon as it was received, the king was naturally as poor as ever. This was exactly what had happened. Money being absolutely indispensable, the Crown provided for itself by repudiating its debts. Orders were given that no more payments should be made out of the Exchequer to the bankers. Thus the king received the parliamentary vote twice over—once when it was advanced by the bankers, and once again as the taxes came in. This was the famous closing of the Exchequer which brought such profound discredit on the Government of Charles II. It was the result of conducting government on the principles of a wasteful private person.

The closing of the Exchequer took place in January 1672. It put the king so far in funds that he was able to meet the House of Commons with some confidence. He could now at least go on to make war without waiting till the House voted him more money. During the whole of 1671 the danger menacing the Low Countries had been notorious. John de Witt tried hard to secure allies, and was prepared to make great concessions to England, in return for support against the French. But the king had decided that the French alliance was more profitable. The piratical character of the war was shown by the very first measure taken by the English Government. Negotiations were still in progress with Holland when Sir Robert Holmes was ordered to attack the home-coming Dutch Smyrna and Lisbon convoys. The seventy or eighty merchant ships forming convoys were known to be laden with very rich cargoes. If they could be seized bodily, they would not only put a great deal of booty in the way of officers employed on the service, but would also give Charles's Government the command of a much-needed sum of money. The duty of seizing them was given to Sir Robert Holmes. The force at his command was supposed to be amply sufficient for the work. He had nominally thirty-six warships under his orders, and, as the Dutch merchant ships were only accompanied by six men-of-war for their protection, he would, supposing his force to be efficient, have been able to overpower them easily. But the strength of his fleet existed mainly on paper. Of the ships actually ready there were only five or six. Holmes was cruising with these vessels in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Wight, when the Dutch fleet under the command of Van Nes came up the Channel. It had perhaps been supposed by the English Court that the Dutch would be found unprepared. They were, however, on their guard. Although the States General had tried to pacify the King of England, they had not been so foolish as to neglect the risk that he would attack them. Van Nes had been warned, and was ready to defend himself. Throughout the whole of the war now beginning, the average conduct of the Dutch officers was better than it had ever been before. The strong measures taken by John de Witt to improve the discipline of the service had had their effect, and it may be believed that the deadly peril of their country had some effect in rousing the courage of the Dutch. They are not an easily moved people, but, when once thoroughly inflamed, their valour is singularly tenacious. On this occasion the Dutch officer handled his convoy with the utmost skill as well as resolution. Twenty of his merchant ships carried guns, and Van Nes made use of them as fighting ships. The decks were hampered with cargo, but this the Dutch skippers threw overboard to make room for working the guns. Van Nes adopted the usual order for a convoy. He arranged his warships and armed merchant ships in the so-called half-moon. This formation had been adopted by Tromp at the battle of Portland. It was, in fact, an angle, the flagship being at the apex, and the vessels from which fighting was expected being arranged in two lines branching out to right and left from her. The unarmed vessels would be put in the space contained in the angle. The action began on the afternoon of the 13th of March. The courage of Holmes was, in fact, more conspicuous than his good management. If he was outnumbered, it was largely due to his own fault. On the day before the Dutch came in sight, he had met the ships returning from the Mediterranean under Sir Edward Spragge. These were the vessels which had been engaged in the operations against the Algerine pirates described above. Spragge had passed the Dutch convoy on the way. He was not acquainted with Holmes's orders, and Sir Robert did not tell him what they were. The fact, no doubt, is that Holmes thought himself strong enough to capture the Dutch convoy without help, and was unwilling to share prize-money with another officer. This was only one more example of the then general practice of subordinating the public service to private interests. Holmes paid for his greed by failure. He found the Dutch far too strong for him. When he attacked on the afternoon of the 13th of March, the English ships fought well, for, although Holmes was a man of a conceited, violent, and turbulent character, he was abundantly brave, and his captains backed him up stoutly. They could, however, make no impression on the Dutch. When night fell, they were glad to draw off badly cut up, and the enemy continued on their way. During the darkness the English ships were refitted. Holmes's own flagship, the St. Michael, was so severely mauled that he was compelled to transfer his flag to the Cambridge, but he was reinforced in the morning by three fresh vessels. The second day's fighting was as fierce as the first had been, and was somewhat more successful. One Dutch vessel was sunk, and five or six were captured. Several officers fell on both sides. The great bulk of the Dutch convoy was carried safely into port. Holmes and Spragge are reported to have had a quarrel. Sir Edward thought that his brother officer had been meanly anxious to deprive him of prize-money, and the probabilities are that he was right.

The failure of this attack was a great disappointment to the Government. The open declaration of war could no longer be delayed. The king had informed Parliament of his intention to make war on the Dutch, and referred it to his Declaration for his reasons. The Declaration, as might be expected where the Government could not avow its real motives, was a somewhat pitiful document. An attempt was made to justify hostilities by complaints that the Dutch had not fulfilled their treaty obligations in regard to Surinam, and had persisted in offensive measures against our trade in the East Indies. Much prominence was given to their offences in the matter of the salute to the English flag. This was a convenient pretext whenever an English Government wished to quarrel with a neighbour. It could always say that it was asserting the national dignity. In the present case the falsity of the pretext was glaring, for the king, who was so exacting towards the Dutch, was prepared to waive his rights as against the French. Louis XIV. never would allow his ships to render the salute, and King Charles did not insist on this mark of deference from his paymaster. The greater part of the Declaration was divided between assertions that the Dutch Republic was the enemy of all kings, and complaints of personal insults directed against King Charles. It was thought ridiculous, even in times which had a profound reverence for royal dignity, that an appreciable portion of so serious a document as a declaration of war should be found to be devoted to a rather whimpering complaint that the Dutch had drawn pictures of His Majesty in undignified positions. This wordy document, written in the style of a pamphlet, produced very little impression on the House of Commons. Members, in fact, were too intent on resisting the spread of Popery, and had been made too angry by the king's Declaration of Indulgence to dissenters, to pay much attention to the war. The session was employed in passing the Test Act, and in the meantime the campaign against the Dutch was carried on with such resources as the king had been able to provide by closing the Exchequer and by taking the money of France.

Although one side had long been resolved on war, and the other had every reason to consider it inevitable, the fleets of England and Holland were so little ready that nearly two months passed before serious operations were begun. The English Government collected its fleet in the course of March, April, and May by the methods already described, and in the face of much the same difficulties as had been met with in former wars. The Navigation Laws were suspended. On the occasion of the last war this had been done by the king without question. But the recently published Declaration of Indulgence had startled Parliament by showing it what extension might be given to the king's prerogative to dispense with penal statutes. The suspension, then, of the Navigation Acts did not on this occasion pass without exciting comment. Yet there was no resistance to the king's exercise of his authority. In war-time the measure was indispensable. In later ages Parliament was accustomed itself to suspend the Acts, since it was evident that the country did not contain a sufficient number of sailors to man both the merchant ships and the war fleet. Crews were found by a free use of the press. Officers who had not been employed during the peace were recalled to the king's service. Such men, for instance, as Richard Haddock now found the opportunity to serve the king in the higher commands of his navy. Richard Haddock was the son of William Haddock, who had served the Commonwealth with distinction, and had been rewarded by the gift of a jewel as a special mark of favour. The family had for centuries been seamen and skippers of the town of Leigh in Essex. Richard Haddock had fought in the previous war, but, finding no employment in peace, had returned to the command of a merchant ship, of which he was part owner. There were still hundreds of others who, like him, were naval officers only in war and merchant seamen in peace. The difficulties which were put in the way of manning the fleet by the defects of the Administration were not less than they had been before, but in this war the King of England did not act alone, and the strain on the Navy Office was not so great.

While the English fleet was being got ready for sea, the Dutch also were preparing. The whole extent of their peril had now been revealed to them. A French army of overwhelming strength poured over their border. The Loevenstein Party had always been jealous of the army. It feared the devotion of the soldiers to the House of Orange, and had not only reduced their numbers, but had disorganised the diminished force it did maintain by omitting to fill up the higher commands. This measure, which was intended to make combined action on the part of the soldiers the more difficult, proved utterly disastrous when the country was suddenly entangled in war with a formidable enemy. The towns fell fast before the invader. The neglected army was found to be utterly inefficient, and it looked for a time as if the end of Holland had come. The States General made appeals to the Kings of France and England, but in vain. They were answered by both with demands which, if complied with, would have entailed the entire destruction of Holland. There are few more odious passages than this in European history. Nothing like it was seen again until the time of Napoleon. The States General, driven to despair, made desperate efforts to prepare forces for the defence of the country. These efforts, though hampered by the divisions of the Dutch Admiralty, were more successful at sea than on land. If the fleet sent to sea under the command of De Ruyter was late in getting ready, it was at least a powerful and efficient force when once it had been collected. It consisted of over a hundred vessels. Between seventy and eighty were of the line or were frigates. If it had been out a month sooner, it is possible that the naval war might have begun by a crushing disaster to the allies. The French squadron appointed to co-operate with the English did not make its appearance in the Channel till the first days of May. It anchored on the third of that month at Portsmouth. The command was given to the Count d'Estrées, Vice-Admiral of France. D'Estrées was not a seaman, but a great noble who was entrusted with the military direction of the fleet only. The navy of Louis XIV. was as yet but new and inexperienced. The forty vessels under d'Estrées were likely to be more of a burden than a help to the English fleet, yet the vessels were among the finest then afloat. While the French admiral was at Portsmouth, he was visited by the king, who admired the size and beauty of his ships. In the meantime the English fleet was painfully collecting in the Downs. If at this moment De Ruyter had been in a position to attack, it is extremely possible that he might have beaten the allies in detail; but his fleet also was not ready, and so the French and English were allowed to join one another in the Downs unmolested. The English fleet consisted of some sixty ships of the line and a number of smaller vessels. Monk was dead, and the command was again in the hands of the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral. The king was still childless, and the duke was the heir-presumptive to the throne; but although this had been made an excuse for recalling him from active command in 1665, it was not allowed to prevent him from going to sea in 1672. The second in command of the English fleet was the Earl of Sandwich. When the whole force of the allies was collected, it was divided, according to the custom of the time, into three squadrons, carrying respectively the red, the white, and the blue flag. On this occasion the White Squadron consisted wholly of the French. It was natural that they should carry this ensign, for the flag of the French monarchy was white. But as the White Squadron formed the van in the order of sailing of a great fleet, it was made a charge against the Cabal that they had sacrificed the dignity of England by leaving this place of honour to a foreign Power. The Red Squadron was under the direct command of the Duke of York. His vice-admiral was Sir Edward Spragge, and his rear-admiral Sir John Harman. Sandwich commanded the Blue Squadron, with Sir Joseph Jordan as vice and Sir John Kempthorne as rear-admiral.

On the 19th of May the whole fleet was at anchor in the Downs when the Dutch fleet was seen off the North Foreland. The Duke of York immediately put to sea, with the intention of forcing on a battle. De Ruyter was perfectly ready to fight, but he was also resolved not to give battle until he saw a fair prospect of striking an effectual blow. He therefore drew off before the allies to the coast of Holland. He perhaps calculated on the inexperience of the French to cause some confusion in the allied fleet. To judge by the movements of the allies, the Duke of York and his English advisers were far from sure of the seamanlike efficiency of their associates. Soon after the fleet had got under way, the weather became misty and squally. Thereupon the allies proceeded to Southwold or Solebay, and came to an anchor on the evening of the 20th. Here they remained, making no movement, for several days. The fleet was anchored some seven or eight miles off shore. This was hardly what was to be expected from a commander who felt confident of the capacity of his force to fight and manœuvre. The Duke of York may have had another reason for remaining at Solebay. The work of provisioning an English fleet was usually so wretchedly done at that time, that he may very possibly have been already in want of stores. Yet his necessities cannot have been so great as to compel him to remain at anchor when an enemy was within a few hours' sail. Another explanation of his action may be found in this, that the duke was essentially no commander at all, but only a very dull man who had acquired some knowledge of the mechanical parts of seamanship, and was intrinsically incapable of thinking out any plan of action. Such a man might naturally prefer to remain quiescent till his enemy came in sight and saved him the trouble of thinking. Whatever the explanation may be, it can hardly be consistent with the efficiency of the allied fleet or the capacity of its commander. The disadvantages of the situation in which the naval force of the allies was kept was patent to many of the subordinate commanders. A well-known and fairly well-authenticated story tells how Sandwich expostulated with the Duke of York at dinner on the evening of the 27th. The Admiral of the Blue called the duke's attention to the fact that when the wind was from the sea the fleet was in a dangerous position, and recommended that it should either stand out or be drawn nearer the shore. What Sandwich probably meant was, that as it lay, the fleet could get no support from batteries on shore, and might, if the wind blew from the E. or N.E., be so attacked that the Dutch could double upon one end of it, part of them placing themselves outside, and the others coming between the English ships and the land. This danger might be averted either by getting under way, or by anchoring so close to the shallow water that the enemy would be unable to come inside. The warning was much needed, and the advice was good. But the Duke of York took neither one nor the other. He only answered with a silly jeer at the courage of Sandwich. The story is credible enough of the only member of the House of Stuart of whom it can be said that he occasionally acted like a boor, and was always essentially dull.

The value of the opinion attributed to Sandwich was demonstrated on the morning of the 28th of May. The French look-out frigate reported that the Dutch fleet was at hand. The morning was hazy, and De Ruyter was close on before he was seen from the flagships. So little was the Duke of York prepared for a risk of which the probability must have been patent to every thinking man in the English fleet, that a number of the boats were getting water. That the ships had not supplied themselves during the seven days they had been lying idle, speaks volumes for the slovenly stupidity of the management in the French and English squadrons. The conduct of the battle is worthy of what had gone before. The moment the Dutch were known to be coming on, the allies did what they ought to have done earlier. They got under way, but of course they had to do in hurry and confusion what they might have done coolly and in good order. The wind was blowing from the N.E. in the early hours of the morning. If it had held steady, De Ruyter would have been upon his enemies before they had time to get into any kind of order, but it fell for a short space, and then shifted round towards the south. This pause gave the allies time to cut their cables and get under way. In the very act of preparing for battle they divided themselves into two, thereby committing the most fatal possible blunder in the presence of a capable enemy. The Blue Squadron was anchored to the north. To the south of it was the Red Squadron, and south of that again the White. In the usual order of sailing it would have fallen to this last to lead. If the Duke of York meant to allow the Blue Squadron to lead, he should have made his meaning perfectly clear beforehand, since, in the absence of particular instructions, d'Estrées would naturally act on the general sailing orders. But if the White Squadron was to lead, it must, with the wind at N.E., stand out to S. of E. on the port tack. This was the course taken by d'Estrées, and, unless he was told not to take it, he was right, both because he followed the regular sailing orders, and because this course would lead him to the open sea. But while d'Estrées was steering south-east, the Blue Squadron, with the Red Squadron after it, was standing to the W. of N. They went out on the starboard tack. Why this course was followed does not appear. It presented no possible advantage, but had, on the contrary, the serious drawback that it carried the English ships near the coast, where they were in imminent danger of being cooped up between the enemy and the shallow water. Haste and want of thought, or confused directions from the Duke of York, probably account for the blunder.

When once it had been made, the allied fleet lay at the mercy of Michael de Ruyter. The course followed by the White Squadron was carrying it away to leeward, whence it could not return except by tacking against the wind. The Dutch admiral could therefore afford to neglect it and employ the main strength of his force in attacking the English. De Ruyter's fleet had come down in line abreast, stretching from north to south. The ships at the northern end formed the squadron of Admiral van Ghent. De Ruyter himself commanded in the centre. The left wing, or most southerly end of the line, was the squadron of Bankert. The Dutch admiral ordered this officer to follow and watch d'Estrées. Bankert's duty was not to force close action with the French admiral, but to keep himself to windward and check every attempt of the enemy to return to the support of the Duke of York. This duty he performed so thoroughly that the French were thrown out of action all day long. Our ancestors accused d'Estrées of want of personal courage, or at least of disloyalty to his ally, but it may be that he could not help himself: having once fallen to leeward, his squadron had not the seamanship to work back against the Dutch.

While d'Estrées and Bankert were engaged in a distant cannonade, a furious battle was raging between the squadrons of Van Ghent and De Ruyter on the one hand, and the Blue and Red Squadrons on the other. Whether he deliberately planned to do it or not, De Ruyter contrived to concentrate a superior force on the English line. In the order in which we went into action, the ships at the head of the line were commanded by Sir John Kempthorne. Next to him came the Earl of Sandwich, with his flag in the Royal James. Sir Joseph Jordan followed the Admiral of the Blue. Then came Sir John Harman, with the rear ships of the Red Squadron. Then the Duke of York, and then Sir Edward Spragge. It would appear that the Dutch attack was directed mainly on those parts of our line which were immediately about the Earl of Sandwich and the Duke of York. I am not aware that this is anywhere stated, but as it is said, on the authority of eye-witnesses, that the Dutch had a superiority of three to two in the battle, and as they certainly could not have had this advantage after detaching the ships under Bankert if they had engaged from end to end, I conclude that they managed to be superior at the point of attack, though only equal in number to the English fleet, by concentrating in this way. It is made further probable that this was the case by the fact that, after the battle had lasted some time, Sir Joseph Jordan tacked with his division of the Blue Squadron, gained the wind of the Dutch, and came to the support of the Duke of York, who was hard pressed. It is said, indeed, that Jordan had previously beaten off his own immediate assailants, but the conduct of the Dutch in the other parts of the battle renders it improbable that Sir Joseph would have been in any condition to manœuvre if he had been seriously attacked. The probabilities are, that a few vessels only were employed to watch rather than attack Jordan, and that the main strength of the Dutch was concentrated on the flags of Sandwich and the Duke of York. It is certain that at these two points the English suffered very severely. As De Ruyter bore down on the English line, he summoned his steersman, or, as we should say, quartermaster, to him, and, pointing with his finger to the Duke of York's flagship, the Prince, said, "That's our man." The Seven Provinces, in which, as in the former war, De Ruyter had hoisted his flag, was brought to within pistol-shot of the Prince, and the two admirals set an example of fierce and close fighting to their fleets. The Dutch boasted that the broadsides of De Ruyter were fired with the rapidity of volleys of musketry, and, as he had no doubt kept his old crew and many of his old officers about him, he may well have had them in a high state of efficiency. The gunnery of the English fleet was generally good, and there was abundance of courage, but the discipline had fallen from the standard of former years. The Prince was cut to pieces without being able to inflict equivalent damage on the Seven Provinces. The Duke of York's mainmast was shot down, and his vessel otherwise so damaged that he transferred himself and his flag to the St. Michael, of which Sir Robert Holmes was captain. Although a regular corps of naval officers was being formed, it had not yet been made the rule that a man who served as admiral on a particular service was always entitled to that rank, and Holmes, who had been a flag-officer in the former war, was only a captain at Solebay. The St. Michael was nearly as badly mauled, before the day was done, as the Prince had been, and the duke was again compelled to transfer his flag to the Loyal London, the flagship of Sir Edward Spragge. While the centre of the English line was thus being broken down under the strenuous attacks of De Ruyter, the Earl of Sandwich was hotly beset by Van Ghent. The Dutch admiral himself fell in the heat of the battle, but the Royal James was none the less furiously assailed. Whatever the defects of his character may have been, Sandwich fought his ship on this the last and most glorious day of his life with determined courage. The Dutch steered fireship after fireship down upon him, but they were one after the other sunk by his guns. At last the enemy succeeded. A shot from the top of one of the Dutch ships wounded the left foot of Richard Haddock, the captain of the Royal James. He limped into his cabin, and was under the hands of the surgeon, who was cutting away some loose skin and one of his toes, when he heard the cry that a fireship had at last grappled the Royal James. It was said that Haddock made his way out of the cabin to the admiral on the quarter-deck. The amount of damage suffered by the ship makes it probable that some of her spars had fallen, bringing down the sails with them, which would be hanging over the side, and that they caught fire in the flames of the fireship. It is at least certain that the Royal James was blazing in a moment, and it is difficult to account for the rapidity of the conflagration in any other way than this. Haddock, so the story runs, implored the admiral to throw himself overboard and endeavour to escape by swimming, but Sandwich, stung by the Duke of York's unmannerly sneer at his well-proved courage, chose to perish in his ship. It is probable that this is a legend invented by someone unfriendly to the duke, for the purpose of increasing the glory of Sandwich. If he had stayed, he would have been burnt in his ship. But his body was picked up some days afterwards, so disfigured that it was only recognised by the star on his coat. The great majority of the officers and men of the Royal James perished with the admiral. Haddock was picked up, and it is said by the Dutch that one of the lieutenants was taken out of the water by their boats. They put into the mouth of this officer a confession of his admiration for their fighting, and a statement that this battle exceeded anything seen in the previous war. "It is not yet midday," he is reported to have said, "and more has been done than in any of the Four Days' Battles." Whether any imprisoned English officer said these words or not, it is true that the battle of Solebay was extraordinarily fierce. So savagely had both parties fought, that in the early hours of the afternoon they were exhausted. It was probably not long before this that Jordan came to the relief of the Duke of York. He was foolishly enough abused in the House of Commons as if he had deserted his own admiral, but his movement was undoubtedly correct. It relieved the pressure on the centre of the English line, and prevented De Ruyter from overpowering our fleet as completely as he might have done but for this interruption. Jordan could, however, do no more than relieve the over-taxed Red Squadron. De Ruyter was able to draw off, leaving the English so crippled that they were utterly unable to follow, and the French, true to their character throughout the whole battle, made no effort to pursue.

Very persistent but also rather foolish attempts have been made to represent the battle of Solebay as a victory for us. It was not that, nor even a drawn battle. It is true that the obstinate valour of the officers and men averted an utter defeat. On our side, Solebay was a sailors' battle, to adapt a phrase usually applied to armies. With the exception of Sir Joseph Jordan's movement to support the Red Squadron, there was no sign of skilful management among our leaders. De Ruyter, on the contrary, showed the qualities of a great commander. Though inferior in numbers on the whole, he took advantage of his enemy's blunder to be superior at the point of attack, and he pressed his assault so fiercely home as to inflict the maximum of damage. Then, having crippled his enemy so effectually that no counter-attack was probable for some time, he took his own fleet home damaged, but still in a state to serve. Indeed, so little was he disabled from keeping the sea, that he met and convoyed home the returning East India ships. The fruits of victory were his.