A Short History of the Royal Navy, 1217 to 1688

by David Hannay

Although the whole of the summer remained to the allies, nothing was done against the Dutch. The French and English squadrons did indeed pay a visit to the coast of Holland, but they made a very short stay there, and the trade of the States was not seriously interrupted. The internal condition both of Holland and England had much to do with suspending hostilities. In the Low Countries revolt broke out against the Loevenstein Party. The partisans of the Prince of Orange succeeded not only in replacing him at the head of the army and navy, but in restoring to him the whole extent of his authority as Stadtholder. The De Witts were cruelly murdered by the mob, and their party effectually destroyed for the time. Although the revolution was accompanied by circumstances of atrocious barbarity, it was on the whole beneficent to Holland. William III. made no attempt to undo what the Loevenstein Party had effected for civil freedom and religious toleration, and he gave his country what it needed if it was to be saved from the invader—that is to say, unity of military command. Having no jealousy of the army, he was able to apply himself with whole-hearted vigour to making it efficient. Holland rose against the French, as it had risen against the Spaniards. The dykes were opened, and the country put under water. During the interval of leisure provided by this desperate measure, much was done to make the defence of the country once more possible. In the midst of so terrible a crisis as this, the naval war was inevitably neglected by Holland. De Ruyter had done enough to avert the danger of invasion from the sea, and offensive operations against England would have served no useful purpose. So hard pressed, indeed, were the Dutch, that they were compelled to land the powder from the ships to be used by the soldiers.

In England other causes were at work to prevent the Government from pushing the war. The king found that the old jealousy of Holland had been replaced, at least for the time, by another and more pressing emotion. The growth of the power of France, the aggressive policy of its king, the danger to a neighbouring Protestant State, combined with the king's obvious intention to favour the Roman Catholics as shown by his Proclamation of Toleration, had frightened the nation into one of its paroxysms of fear of Popery. Parliament showed an obstinate determination to give the king no help in this war. It called in question his right to suspend the penal laws against dissenters, and the session was devoted to passing the Test Act, which was especially meant to exclude Roman Catholics from all offices under the Crown. Although it was one of the secret articles of the king's treaty with France that he was to proclaim himself a Roman Catholic whenever a favourable opportunity occurred, he was compelled to allow the bill to become law, for fear that an obstinate refusal would provoke an explosion of disloyalty to the Crown. Hitherto the Parliament had been profuse in declarations of loyalty to the king's person. It drew careful distinction between him and his servants, and always professed to be inspired by a tender anxiety for his safety, even at the moment that it was engaged in defeating what it well knew to be his policy. According to his usual custom, Charles escaped the peril by bowing to it, and by sacrificing his servants. Among those who were thrown over to pacify the House of Commons was the Duke of York. On the passing of the Test Act he resigned his commission as Lord High Admiral, and was therefore necessarily removed from the command of the fleet. He was replaced by Prince Rupert. The choice of his cousin to command at sea was probably due less to any confidence the king had in his ability than to the prince's rank. As the English fleet was to co-operate with the French, it was desirable to have someone at the head of it whom a French noble would recognise as his social superior. Louis XIV. had given strict orders to his officers to avoid disputes with the English, but it is very doubtful whether even the commands of his own king would have been enough to compel the Count d'Estrées to render ready obedience to Spragge or Jordan.

Although he was hampered by the reluctance of his Parliament to vote him money, and by the growing unpopularity of the French alliance among Englishmen, the king made an effort in the following year to push the war against Holland. Six thousand soldiers were collected at Yarmouth, to form an invading army ready to be landed on the coast of Zeeland or North Holland, in order to attack the Republic from behind, while the French troops were pressing on it from the Rhine. Before it was safe to attempt to land these men on the Dutch coast, it was absolutely necessary to dispose of the fleet of De Ruyter. The crushing burden thrown upon them by the French invasion made it hard indeed for the Dutch to maintain an adequate force at sea. If they could have devoted the whole resources of the State to the naval war, they might perhaps have been able to meet the French and English on equal terms. But this was far from being the case. Their resources did not do more than enable them to fit out such a fleet as might, "by the help of God and a good admiral," prevent the enemy from landing an army on their coast. Happily for them, and for England also, since the success of King Charles's mean personal policy would have been the establishment of France in overwhelming strength in the Netherlands, the good admiral was not wanting to Holland. Michael de Ruyter was admirably fitted for the work he had now to do. He had to fight a defensive campaign. A rash man might have yielded to the strain, and have risked the existence of Holland by fighting an imprudent battle. But De Ruyter, though he was one of the few commanders who grew bolder as he grew old, was never rash. On the other hand, a timid man might have been oppressed by the responsibility of his position, and might have been reluctant to fight, even when a fair opportunity presented itself. De Ruyter had just the needful combination of cool, self-possessed caution which made him refrain from blindly rushing at a threatening danger, and of intrepidity which nerved him to strike hard when he saw that a blow could be successfully delivered. He was the last man in the world to endeavour to behave after the fashion recommended by our own Admiral Herbert some twenty years later—namely, to get behind a sandbank, and trust to the effect which the knowledge that the fleet was "in being" was likely to have on the mind of an enemy. Nor was it in his nature to attack feebly when the time for fighting had come. Therefore it was that he stood vigilantly on guard during the summer of 1673 amid the shallows of the Dutch coast, watching the operations of the superior allied fleet, leaving them unmolested when nothing was to be gained by attack, and striking, when the time for blows had come, with might and main. The success he achieved may be regarded by us not only with the admiration due to a valiant and skilful enemy, but with something not remote from patriotic approval. He won, it is true, against an English fleet, but his victory was gained in the real interest of England.

It was obviously the interest of the Dutch to cripple the naval force of England before it could be again united with that of France. Since it was impossible for them, with their then diminished resources, to do this by being beforehand with a powerful fleet, they resolved to make the attempt to effect the purpose indirectly. A scheme, of which De Ruyter himself can hardly have approved, was formed to block the approaches of the Thames by sinking heavily-laden ships in the Channel. With this purpose in view, De Ruyter came on our coast early in May, with a force of 31 ships of the line, 14 frigates, and 18 fireships. He came as far as the Gunfleet, but no attempt was made to put the plan into operation. The naval preparations of the English Government had been timely. It had a sufficient force lying outside the banks to oppose De Ruyter's squadron. When this was known to be the case, the Dutch admiral fell back to his own coast. The States General, with the approval of the Prince of Orange, decided on making no more attempts at offensive warfare for the present. The only fleet Holland could afford to equip was stationed at Schooneveldt, a good anchorage between shallows on the coast of Zeeland. Here it was ordered to lie, and keep watch on the movements of Prince Rupert.

Shortly after De Ruyter had returned to the coast of his country, the French squadron arrived in the Downs. It was still under the command of d'Estrées, and consisted of 27 ships of the line and some smaller vessels. The strength of the English fleet was 54 ships of the line, and it was divided into two squadrons—the Red, under the command of Rupert, and the Blue, of which Sir Edward Spragge was now admiral, in succession to Sandwich. The Dutch fleet had been raised to a strength of 55 ships of the line, 14 frigates, 25 fireships, 14 yachts, and 7 galliots—115 vessels in all. But more than half of these were small. De Ruyter had only 55 battleships to oppose to the 81 of the allies. The odds were very long. No English admiral has ever had to fight against such a superiority of real force. Although bad administration and the example of the Court had done much to injure the discipline of our fleet, it was still far from being as inferior in efficiency to the Dutch as the Spanish and French fleets of Nelson's time were to us. In the allied fleet the English were just equal to the Dutch, leaving the whole French squadron to give the allies a superiority of power. The French were still inexperienced, and for that, together with other reasons, they proved of little use in the campaign. Yet they were certainly not so inferior to the Dutch as the Spaniards of the Great War were to ourselves, and De Ruyter cannot have known that they would not exert themselves fully.

So soon as the whole allied force was collected in the Thames, it stood over to the Dutch coast. The conduct of the French at the battle of Solebay had filled the English seamen with suspicion, and it was decided to put them on this occasion where they could not go off on a tack by themselves. Prince Rupert took the van with the Red Squadron. The French, who still formed the White Squadron, were placed in the centre, with the Blue Squadron under Sir Edward Spragge in the rear. Our ally was thus sandwiched between two trustworthy English forces. De Ruyter was found at his anchorage at Schooneveldt. Relying, as he reasonably might, on his superior numbers, Prince Rupert decided to make an attempt to draw the enemy out to the open sea, where he could be crushed. A light squadron of thirty vessels, including eight French, was sent in with eight fireships to attack the Dutch at anchor. The wind was from the S.W., and the occasion appeared favourable. Rupert's effort to draw the enemy proved successful in a way he had not foreseen. De Ruyter was not the man to lie in a hole and to think that it was enough to preserve himself in being, in order to make himself felt by the enemy. He could rely on the zeal of his squadron. A vehement letter of appeal from the Prince of Orange to the officers and men on the fleet had been read on every ship. It called on them to remember that the very existence of their country was now at stake, to throw aside all selfish care for their own lives, and to sink all personal animosities for the sake of Holland, This appeal to the patriotic feeling which is profound in the Dutch heart had been becomingly answered. De Ruyter had set his fleet a good example by putting his personal grievances aside. The Stadtholder had appointed Cornelius van Tromp to succeed Van Ghent. Tromp was an ardent partisan of the House of Orange, and was very popular with the seamen, but he was no friend to Michael de Ruyter. His disobedience in the last battle of the previous war had almost caused a crushing disaster, and there had been an open quarrel between the two. When, however, Tromp was named by the Stadtholder as third in command of the fleet, the admiral promised to forgive what had passed. Tromp was ordered by the prince to obey his admiral, and the two were publicly reconciled. As no more is heard of the insubordination of Tromp, he must be supposed to have been sincere in the promises he gave, not to remember the stinging rebuke of De Ruyter in the former war.

When, on the 28th May, the allied light squadron was seen to be approaching, the Dutch prepared to meet the attack by a counter-blow. Their anchors were apeak, and they were ready to get under way at a moment's notice. They stood out on the port tack to the N.W., Tromp's division, which was the rear according to the formal division of the fleet, being the van in the action. De Ruyter was in the centre, and Bankert commanded in the rear. So prompt was the action of the Dutch that the allied light squadron had not time to run back to the protection of the fleet before the enemy was close on it. It fled in disorder and with loss. The allied commanders were no less completely surprised by the vigour of De Ruyter's counter-stroke. They had calculated that the enemy would be too frightened to take the offensive. They thought they had to deal with a terrified opponent, who would have to be slowly and with difficulty worried out of his lurking-places. Under this delusion they lay at anchor in some disorder. When, then, De Ruyter stood out to attack them, they had to get under way in a hurry, and their line was badly formed when the enemy was upon them. Both fleets stood out to sea on the port tack, heading to N.W. The Blue Division was hotly engaged by Tromp, and De Ruyter pressed hard on the French in the centre. Bankert was opposed to Rupert with the Red Squadron in the rear. The fight was hottest in the van and centre. The Red Division was comparatively little engaged. According to the French accounts, d'Estrées, seeing that Rupert was not pressing hard enough on the squadron of Bankert, ordered some of his own ships to bear down on the Dutch rear, and they succeeded in cutting it off from the centre. Then De Ruyter, seeing what had happened, tacked with his division, and, running through the French ships, rejoined Bankert. His next move, according to the same authority, was to turn again to the north and follow Tromp, who in the meantime had continued on the first course engaged with Sir Edward Spragge. It was the fortune of these two to be pitted against one another in all the battles of this campaign. The battle ended in the evening without decisive result. De Ruyter anchored near West Kappel, and the allied fleet stood over to the coast of England. This was but a lame and impotent conclusion after the vigorous movement with which the French credit themselves. One suspects that the Dutch version is nearer the truth—namely, that Bankert, finding himself not severely pressed by Rupert, stood on to assist De Ruyter against the White Squadron, and that the allies were timidly handled throughout. Certainly, with eighty-one ships and the weather-gage they might well have done more against fifty-five enemies to leeward.

The Dutch admiral may perhaps have hoped to do sufficient injury to a portion of his enemy's fleet to induce him to return home in order to refit. But the allies continued on the coast, and De Ruyter, who must by this time have seen clearly that he was not called upon to contend against great energy or faculty, decided not to wait to be attacked. Seven days after the battle of the 28th of May, on the 4th of June, he had a favourable wind from the N.E. The deputies of the States accompanied their fleets as well as their armies, but were apparently less timid when sea-fighting was concerned than they were often found to be on shore. Though the odds were long against him, the field deputies gave their consent when De Ruyter asked leave to attack. On the afternoon of the 4th he bore down from windward. As on the former occasion, the fleets engaged headed to the N.W., with the rear divisions in the van. The French were no longer in the centre of the allied fleet, but had resumed the van, the place they had held at the battle of Solebay, which, as the fleets engaged, was in fact in rear of the line. In this, as in all his battles, De Ruyter aimed intelligently at concentrating on a part of the enemy's line, in order to counterbalance a general inferiority in numbers. The brunt of the fighting fell on the two English divisions, the Red and the Blue. Our own historians of the war, who for slovenliness in the use of terms, vagueness of description, and mendacity of assertion are nearly unequalled, maintain that the advantage rested with the allies. Rupert, they say, artfully endeavoured to draw the Dutch off their own coast by slanting to leeward. The substantial facts covered by this plausible apology are that the Dutch and English cannonaded one another until dark; that the English suffered as severely as the enemy, that the French did nothing, and that on the following day the Red and Blue Squadrons were found to have suffered so much that the allies returned to the Thames to refit. Tromp went back to his own coast, having gained the fruits of victory. He had driven a fleet, more than half again as strong as his own, off the coast of the Low Countries, had stopped an invasion, and had cleared the road for trade.

The utter failure of Rupert and d'Estrées to sweep the Dutch fleet out of the road might have convinced the English Court that the time had not come for an invasion of Holland from the sea. Yet, unless something was done, the war would soon appear as ridiculous to Englishmen as it was already odious. The ships were refitted, 4000 soldiers were embarked in the men-of-war and 2000 others in transports. Then the whole force was sent back to the coast of Holland, in order, apparently, to try whether, since it had been found impossible to beat the Dutch fleet first and land the soldiers afterwards, it might not be possible to do both things at once.

On the 23rd of July the allies were again on the coasts of the Low Countries, about the mouth of the Maas. From this point they prowled along as far as the islands beyond North Holland and then back again. De Ruyter had been reinforced till he had under his command about seventy ships of the line. As the English and French had also been strengthened till the first numbered sixty and the second thirty battleships, the superiority of the allies was still considerable. True to his policy of not fighting rashly, De Ruyter followed the enemy as they sailed to and fro, keeping his own ships in the dangerous banks and shallows, where the sharper-keeled French and English vessels dared not follow. But he was still resolute to strike so soon as he had a fair opportunity. It came on the 11th of August, when both fleets were close to the Texel. On the 10th the wind was blowing from the sea, and Rupert pressed in as close as he dared. During the night De Ruyter slipped between the allies and the land and anchored near Camperdown. In the morning the wind had shifted to the S.E., giving the weather-gage to the Dutch. De Ruyter had the permission of the States to give battle, and he came down with his seventy against the ninety of the allies. Both fleets were heading to the south, on the port tack. The French were now actually in the van. The Red Division was in the centre, under the direct command of Rupert, with John Harman as vice-admiral and Chicheley as rear-admiral. Sir Edward Spragge commanded the rear, with Kempthorne as second, and the Earl of Ossory, the son of the Duke of Ormonde, who served as a rear-admiral not because he was a seaman, but because he was a gallant gentleman, for whom the king had a liking, and the son of a great noble. In the Dutch fleet Bankert led the first division, De Ruyter was at his place in the centre, and Tromp was once more opposed to his old foe Spragge in the rear. The plan of the Dutch admiral was identical with that which he had followed in the previous battles of the war. He decided to concentrate his efforts on the Blue and Red Squadrons. He did not do the French the honour to deal with them seriously. Ten vessels were told off under Bankert to watch them, and then De Ruyter fell with the sixty left to him on the sixty English. The battle broke into three separate engagements. Bankert engaged the French at some little distance. Being much more numerous than their opponents, it was in the power of the French to stretch ahead, to make the leading ships turn to windward, and so put Bankert between two fires. They made the attempt to carry out this obvious movement. The leading subdivision of the White Squadron, commanded by M. de Martel, turned to windward and gained a position from which it could have fallen on Bankert. But the intrepid and steady Dutchman was not minded to remain passive till he was taken between two fires. He put his helm up and ran through the French ships still to leeward of him. The French say that the fighting at this moment was hot, and that they almost succeeded in destroying Bankert's vessel with a fireship. It would have been unspeakably disgraceful to them if there had not been hot fighting; as it is, their inferiority to either the Dutch or English seamen in the contending fleets is demonstrated by Bankert's success in carrying out a movement which could never have succeeded against a skilful enemy. It is likely that the heat of the action was felt much more acutely by the French than the Dutch. Bankert's captains must have been very much wanting to themselves if they did not rake the French ships as they passed through with tremendous effect.