Great Charles, thy great ship in her course direct!”
She was built of the best oak, and no more seaworthy ship had ever been turned out from Woolwich previously. The Royal Prince, built only nineteen years before, seems to have been a mere holiday ship, and was at the above-mentioned date laid up; the Royal Sovereign was in active service for nearly sixty years, and would have been rebuilt but for an untoward accident. The history and fate of this fine ship are thus briefly described by a descendant of the architect, Phineas Pett, writing in January, 1696:—
“The Royal Sovereign was the first great ship that was ever built in England; she was then designed only for splendour and magnificence, and was in some measure the occasion of those loud complaints against ship-money in the reign of Charles I.; but being taken down a deck lower, she became one of the best men-of-war in the world, and so formidable to her enemies that none of the most daring among them would willingly lie by her side. She had been in almost all the great engagements that had been fought between France and Holland; and in the last fight between the English and the French, encountering the Wonder of the World, she so warmly plied the French Admiral, that she forced him out of his three-decked wooden castle, and chasing the Royal Sun before her, forced her to fly for shelter among the rocks, where she became a prey to lesser vessels, that reduced her to ashes. At length, leaky and defective herself with age, she was laid up at Chatham to be rebuilt; but being set on fire by negligence, she was, on the 27th of this month, devoured by the element which so long and so often before she had imperiously made use of as the instrument of destruction to others.”
Charles, in spite of his troubles, either rebuilt or added eighteen vessels to the Royal Navy, leaving it not merely numerically stronger, but improved in all other particulars. The immense square sterns and full bows originally copied from the Dutch (who built their ships apparently on their own model) gave place to more shapely sterns and sharper bows. Extremely high poops and forecastles—copied, one would think, from the Chinese—were abandoned as increasing the dangers of seamanship. Tonnage and number of guns were largely increased. A “first rate” advanced from fifty to sixty, and afterwards to a hundred guns.
Holland, during the reigns of James I. and Charles I., had been carrying off all the commercial honours from England, and it was becoming evident that prohibitory laws were needed to stop their triumphant progress on the sea. In 1646, and again in 1650, two Acts were passed, both having the same tendency, to prevent foreign ships trading with England’s new plantations in Virginia, Bermuda, Barbadoes, “and other places in America.”[7] On the 9th of October, 1651, the celebrated Navigation Act of Cromwell came into operation. There were no half measures in that Act. It declared that no goods or commodities whatever of the growth, production, or manufacture of Asia, Africa, or America, should be imported either into Great Britain or Ireland, or any of the colonies, except in British-built ships, owned by British subjects, and of which the master and three-fourths of the crew belonged to that country. This, literally translated, meant that England wanted the carrying trade of everything that concerned her own well being. The next enactment went further. It provided that no goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of any country in Europe should be imported into Great Britain except in British ships, owned and navigated by British subjects, “or in such ships as were the real property of the people of the country or place in which the goods were produced, or from which they could only be, or most usually were, exported.” This provision was aimed at the Dutch; they had little to export. But unless one can understand the long-stifled animosity and jealousy felt in England regarding their commercial supremacy on the seas, and as regards the carrying trade, he can hardly understand why laws, which would nowadays be considered ridiculous and unjust, were so popular then. So strong had these feelings become, that when the Dutch despatched an embassy to England for the purpose of obtaining a revocation of the navigation laws, its members had to be guarded from the violence of the mob.
England had now unmistakably asserted her right to carry on her own over-sea trade in her own ships, and to enter the lists with any other nation as regards foreign trade. This action was a defiance hurled at Holland, and after a little manœuvring ended inevitably in war. A few facts only regarding that war may be permitted here. The Dutch were at first, and indeed for the most part, the sufferers. Within a month of its declaration, Blake captured 100 of their herring boats, and twelve of their frigates, sinking a thirteenth. In 1652-3 there were five actions. In the first Blake was successful; in the second he was thoroughly beaten by Martin Tromp (father of the Tromp best known in history). The third, early in 1653, resulted in a victory for the English, the Dutch losing 300 merchantmen they had captured not long before; the fourth was a decided victory for England, and the [pg 31]fifth was an indecisive action. The English, however, took possession of the Channel, and scarcely a day passed without Dutch prizes being brought into English ports. Many of the Dutch ships, returning from distant parts of the world, rounded Scotland, rather than pass up the Channel. On the fifth of April, 1654, a treaty of peace was concluded; Cromwell requiring, before it was signed, an admission of the English sovereignty of the seas, and the Dutch consenting to strike their flag to the ships of the Commonwealth.
One of the greatest maritime successes of the Protector’s time was the capture of Spanish galleons worth, with their freight, £600,000. The fleet had been lying idly off Cadiz endeavouring to provoke the Spanish squadron to an engagement, or trusting to intercept their returning treasure ships. Captain Stayner in the Speaker, accompanied by the Bridgewater and Plymouth, left the English fleet temporarily with the intention of taking water on board in a neighbouring bay. On his course he luckily fell in with eight galleons from America. Such an opportunity warmed up the hitherto drooping spirits of the English sailors, and they fought with fury. In a few hours one of the galleons was sunk, a second burned, two ashore, and four taken prizes. They were loaded with plate, ore, and money. When the treasure reached London it was placed in open carts and ammunition wagons, and carried in triumph through the streets to the Tower, with a guard of only ten soldiers. This rather ostentatious display of confidence in the people proved an excellent move for Cromwell; nothing added more to his popularity among the lower classes. The Earl of Montague, who convoyed it home, but who in reality had nothing to do with its capture, was the subject of universal panegyrics and parliamentary thanks.
If Charles II. could have reversed any of Cromwell’s legislative measures, he and his court would most assuredly have done so. But they were simply modified, and not to the advantage of the Dutch, who were very much irritated, but attempted to gain time. Charles, however, without waiting for a formal declaration of hostilities, seized 130 of their ships laden with wine and brandy, homeward bound from Bordeaux, which were taken into English ports, and condemned as lawful prizes, although such an act could not be justified by any law of nations. War was again declared in 1665, and an action occurred off Harwich, in which the celebrated Van Tromp was engaged. The Dutch lost nineteen ships, burnt or sunk, with probably 6,000 men; the English lost only four vessels, and about 1,500 men. Then came a coalition between the French and Dutch, and the great battle of June 1st, 1666, in which England lost two admirals, and twenty-three great ships, besides smaller vessels, 6,000 men, and 2,600 prisoners; and the Dutch four admirals, six ships, and 2,800 soldiers. The Dutch could fairly claim the victory here, but less than eight weeks later, July 24th, were thoroughly beaten, De Ruyter being driven into port, and a large number of merchant ships and two men-of-war being taken immediately afterwards. While negotiations were going on for peace next year, the Dutch, believing Charles to be trifling, despatched De Ruyter to the Thames. All London was in a panic. A strong chain had been thrown across the Medway, but the Dutch, with favourable wind and strong tide, broke through it, destroyed the fortifications of Sheerness, burnt royal and merchant ships, and pushed up the river as far as Upnor Castle, near Chatham. It was even feared that the fleet would sail up to London Bridge, and to prevent it, thirteen ships were sunk in the river at Woolwich, and four at Blackwall. Numerous platforms furnished with artillery were [pg 32]hastily prepared at various points. After committing all the damage that he could in the Thames, De Ruyter sailed for Portsmouth, intending to cause similar havoc, but finding the fleet well prepared, he passed down the Channel and captured several vessels at Torbay. Thence turning back, he hovered about hither and thither, keeping the coast in continual alarm until the treaty of peace was signed in the following summer. By its provisions each nation retained the goods and prizes it had captured, while all ships of war and merchant vessels belonging to the United Provinces meeting our men-of-war in British waters, were required to “strike the flag and lower the sail as had been formerly practised.” From this date the merchant navy of England steadily increased, and London became that which Amsterdam had been, the mart of nations, the chief emporium of the commercial world. In spite of De Ruyter, England had therefore greatly gained by this war.
DE RUYTER ON THE MEDWAY.