[186] There is no doubt that in this raid on the English coast the Dutch were successful in doing a great amount of damage to the English marine; but at the same time more credit is due than has been usually given to Sir Edward Spragge, who, on two successive days, with only a small force of five frigates and seventeen fire-ships, repulsed the Dutch fleet under Van Nes, though on the first he was compelled to fall back for a few hours under the guns of Tilbury Fort. Van Nes had been sent by De Ruyter to force his way up the Thames, and Spragge deserves to be recorded as the English admiral who stopped his further advance (Cust, vol. ii. p. 391). There is at Hampton Court an original painting by Vandevelde of the later action of August 1673, in which Spragge was drowned.
[187] It is remarkable that the free trade theories, which had their origin in France, should have been so long altogether neglected in the legislation of that great country; but the most republican governments there, as elsewhere, seem to have been the most jealous champions of the protectionist system.
[188] Vide notes on Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’ by J. R. McCulloch, 4th edition, p. 607; and E. Gibbon Wakefield’s ‘View of the Art of Colonisation,’ Lond. 1849.
[189] See remarks on what the Dutch had done to the apparent injury of the English colonies previous to the passing of the Navigation Acts (Macpherson, ii. p. 487).
[190] ‘New Discourse on Trade,’ by Josiah Child, 1665, Glasgow, ed. 1751.
[191] Vide ‘Political Arithmetick,’ 4th ed. p. 103.
[192] ‘Discourse on the Trade of England,’ vol. i. pp. 129, 363.
[193] Chambers’s ‘Estimate of the Strength of Great Britain,’ p. 68.
[194] A list of these vessels will be found in the Gazette, No. 2888.
[195] The French navy was, however, nearly destroyed in the great battle of La Hogue, fought by Admiral Russell on May 12, 1692.