Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/468

454 lenders, in their turn, could not meet the demands of their creditors. The exchange was in a panic: many of the bankers and mercantile houses failed, a great shock was given to credit throughout the kingdom, and many annuitants, widows, and orphans, who had deposited their money with them, were reduced to ruin. Ashley and Clifford were said to have been the authors of the scheme; but Ashley was a man of infinite schemes, and probably was the original inventor. Government declared that the post-ponement of payment should only be for one year; but the greater part of the money was never again repaid, and this sum, so fraudently obtained, became the nucleus of the present national debt.

The manner in which the government commenced the war on Holland was characterised by the same infamous disregard of all honourable principle. Though Charles had bound himself to make war on the Dutch, he had no cause of quarrel with them, whatever he pretended to have. When Louis menaced them with hostilities, Charles offered himself as a mediator, and the Dutch regarded him as such. Under these circumstances he sent Sir Robert Holmes with a large fleet to intercept a Dutch fleet of merchantmen coming from the Levant, and calculated to be worth a million and a half. Holmes, in going out, saw the squadron of Sir Edward Spragge at the back of the Isle of Wight, which had recently returned from destroying the Algerine navy; and though his orders were to take all the vessels along with him that he could find at Portsmouth, or should meet at sea, lest Spragge should obtain some of the glory and benefit, he passed on and gave him no summons. The next day he descried the expected Dutch fleet; but to his chagrin he found that it was well convoyed by seven men-of-war, and the merchantmen, sixty in number, were many of them well armed. The vast preparations of Louis, and some recent movements of the English, had put them on their guard. Notwithstanding Charles's hypocritical offers of friendly mediation, he had withdrawn the honourable Sir William Temple from the Hague, and sent thither the unprincipled Downing, a man so detested there, that the mob chased him away. Van Nesse, the Dutch admiral, successfully resisted the attack of Holmes, who only managed to cut off one man-of-war and four merchantmen. The chagrin of Charles was equal to the disgrace with which this base action covered him and his ministers. Both his own subjects and foreigners denounced the action in fitting terms, and Holmes was styled "the cursed beginner of the two Dutch wars."

There was nothing now for it but to declare war, which was done by both England and France. Charles mustered up a list of trumpery charges, which, bad as they were, would nave come with a better grace before attacking his allies without any notice—the detention of English traders in Surinam; the neglect to strike the Dutch flag to him in the narrow seas; and refusal to regulate their trade relations according to the treaty. Louis simply complained of insults, and declared his intention to assert his glory. Under such thin veils were put the real intentions of Louis and his bond-slave Charles.

The Dutch fleet was not long in appearing at sea with seventy-five sail under De Ruyter. On the 3rd of May the duke of York, admiral of the English fleet, descried this powerful armament posted betwixt Calais and Dover, to prevent his junction with the French fleet. He had only forty sail of the line, but he managed to pass unobserved, and join the French squadron under D'Estrées, La Rabiniere, and Du Quesne. On the 28th they came to an engagement near Southwold Bay; the battle was terrible—scarcely any of these sanguinary conflicts of those times with the Dutch more so.

Owing to the wind and tide, not more than twenty of the English sail could engage the enemy. The French squadron under D'Estrées formed in opposition to the Zeeland squadron of Banker; but they stood away under easy sail southward, and never came to action; in fact, it was the well-known policy of Louis to allow the Dutch and English to play the bulldogs with each other, and to spare his own infant navy. The duke of York, with a part of the red squadron, opposed De Ruyter; the earl of Sandwich, with part of the blue, Van Ghent and the Amsterdam fleet. The English were so surrounded by the multitudes of the enemy, that they could afford little aid to each other, and were exposed on all sides to a most merciless fire. By eleven o'clock the duke of York's ship was totally disabled, and had lost one-third of her men. He himself escaped out of a cabin window, and got on board the St. Michael, of seventy guns. Poor old admiral Montague, earl of Sandwich, in the Royal James, did marvels of valour. Surrounded by the enemy, he boarded a seventy gun ship that lay athwart his hawse, and killed Van Ghent, the Dutch admiral; but assailed by two fireships, he destroyed one, and the other destroyed him. The Royal James was blown up, and thus the old man, who had so long figured both under the commonwealth and crown, finished his career. He had a foreboding of his fate, and told Evelyn when he took leave of him to go on board, that he would see him no more. Two hundred of his men escaped.

In the afternoon the St. Michael, to which the duke had fled, was also sinking, and he had to remove to the London. In the evening the Dutch fleet drew off, and the next morning the two divisions of the English fleet joined and offered battle, but De Ruyter tacked about and a chase commenced. Twice the English were on the point of pouring their broadsides into the enemy, when a fog saved them, and on the second day the Dutch took refuge within the Wierings. The duke showed unquestionable courage on this occasion; no real advantage to the country, however, but much cost and damage resulted from this unnatural war to prostrate a protestant country, to pander to the mad ambition of the French king. Louis all this time was taking advantage of the Dutch being thus engaged. He marched upon Holland with one hundred thousand men, assisted by the military talent of Turenne, Condé, and Luxembourg. He took Orsoi, Burick, Wesel, and Rhinberg on the Rhine, crossed the river at Schenck in the face of the enemy, and overran three of the seven united provinces. The city of Amsterdam itself was in consternation, for the fires of the French camp could be seen from the top of the Stadt House. Even the great De Witt was in despair; but at this crisis Holland was saved by a youth whose family had been jealously thrust from the stadtholdership. This was William of Orange, afterwards William III. of England.