“When we return in safety,
With wages for our pains;
The tapster and the vintner
Will help to share our gains.
We’ll call for liquor roundly,
And pay before we go;
Then we roar on the shore
When the stormy winds do blow,” etcetera.
The gallant Blake’s latest achievement was the capture of numerous Spanish galleons, after a desperate battle off Teneriffe. He, however, did not live to receive the fresh honours Parliament was ready to bestow on him, as he died on the 17th of August, on board the George, just as she was entering Plymouth Sound. As Clarendon says of him: “He was the first to infuse that proportion of courage into seamen, by making them see by experience what mighty things they could do if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water; and although he had been very well imitated and followed, he was the first to give an example of that kind of naval courage which leads to bold and resolute deeds.”
The first duty of the English fleet after the restoration had been determined on was to bring over Charles the Second, who landed in Kent on the 23rd May, 1660.
Chapter Nine.
Charles the Second and James the Second—from A.D. 1660 to A.D. 1689.
The object of Roman Catholic France was to keep Protestant England embroiled with Holland, and in the profligate Charles the Second, a willing instrument was found for carrying out her designs. War was declared, and the Duke of York took command of a fleet consisting of 109 men-of-war, and 28 fire-ships and ketches, with 21,000 seamen and soldiers on board. The Duke having blockaded the Texel, was compelled at length for want of provisions to return to England, and immediately the Dutch fleet sailed out under the command of Baron Opdam, Evertzen, and Cornelius Van Tromp. Directly afterwards nine merchant-ships of the English Hamburgh Company and a frigate of 34 guns fell into their hands. Opdam at all risks was ordered to attack the English, which he did, contrary to his own opinion, while his opponents had the advantage of the wind. At first the battle appeared tolerably equal, but the Earl of Sandwich, with the Blue Squadron, piercing into the centre of the Dutch fleet, divided it into two parts, and began that confusion which ended in its total defeat. The Duke of York, who was in the Royal Charles, a ship of 80 guns, was in close fight with Admiral Opdam in the Endracht, of 84 guns. The contest was severe, the Earl of Falmouth, Lord Muskerry, and Mr Boyle, second son of the Earl of Burlington, standing near the duke, were killed by a chain-shot. In the heat of the action the Dutch admiral’s ship blew up, and of five hundred of his gallant men, among whom were a great number of volunteers of the best families in Holland, only five were saved. A fire-ship falling foul of four Dutch ships, the whole were burnt. Shortly afterwards three others suffered the same fate. The whole Dutch fleet seemed now to be but one blaze, and the cries of so many miserable wretches who were perishing either by fire or water was more frightful than the noise of the cannon. The English gave their vanquished enemy all the assistance they could, while with continued fury they assailed the rest. The English lost but one ship, while they took eighteen of the largest Dutch ships, sunk or burnt about fourteen more, killed four thousand men, and took two thousand prisoners, who were brought into Colchester. Among them were sixteen captains. As the bards of old stirred up the warriors of their tribe to deeds of valour, so the naval poets of those days wrote songs to animate the spirits of British tars. The following lines are said to have been written on the eve of the battle by Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset:—
I.
To all you ladies now on land
We men at sea indite,
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write;
The muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you.
With a fa, la, la, la, la.
II.
For tho’ the muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain;
Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind
To wave the azure main,
Our paper, pen and ink, and we
Roll up and down our ships at sea.
With a fa, la, etcetera.
III.
Then if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind,
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost
By Dutchmen or by wind,
Ours tears we’ll send a speedier way—
The tide shall bring them twice a-day.
With a fa, la, etcetera.
IV.
The king, with wonder and surprise,
Will swear the seas grow bold,
Because the tides will higher rise
Than e’er they used of old,
But let him know it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall stairs
With a fa, la, etcetera.
V.
Let wind and weather do its worst,
Be you to us but kind,
Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,
No sorrow shall we find;
’Tis then no matter how things go,
Or who’s our friend, or who’s our foe.
With a fa, la, etcetera.
VI.
And now we’ve told you all our loves,
And likewise all our fears,
In hopes this declaration moves
Some pity from your tears;
Let’s hear of no inconstancy,
We have too much of that at sea.
With a fa, la, etcetera.
Notwithstanding this defeat, the Dutch in a short time were again ready for battle. The fight lasted without interruption from three in the morning till seven in the evening. The remains of the Dutch fleet made sail for the Texel, but were not pursued by the duke. “After the fight,” says Burnet, “a council of war was called to concert the method of action when they should come up with the enemy. In that council, Penn, who commanded under the duke, happened to say that they must prepare for better work the next engagement. He knew well the courage of the Dutch was never so high as when they were desperate. The Earl of Montague, who was then a volunteer, and one of the duke’s corps, told him it was very visible that remark made an impression upon him; and all the duke’s domestics said, ‘He had got near enough—why should he venture a second time.’ The duchess had also given a strict charge to all the duke’s servants to do all they could to hinder him to engage too far. When matters were settled they went to sleep, and the duke ordered a call to be given him when they should get up with the Dutch fleet. It is not known what passed between the duke and Brouncker, who was of his bed-chamber, and then in waiting, but he came to Penn as from the duke and said, ‘The duke orders the sail to be slackened.’ Penn was struck with the order, but did not go about to argue the matter with the duke himself as he ought to have done, but obeyed it. When the duke had slept, he upon his waking went out upon the quarter-deck, and seemed amazed to see the sails slackened, and that thereby all hopes of overtaking the Dutch was lost.” It was not the only occasion on which James the Second showed the white feather.