Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/212

 these ships, worth several millions, and to divide the spoil. Through mismanagement, however, the scheme was defeated, and the Earl of Sandwich, who had been sent to carry out this intrigue, was so severely handled by the governor of Bergen, that the English ships were compelled to return home. A strong fleet of ninety-three ships, well equipped, under the command of De Ruyter, was then despatched from Holland to convey home the valuable merchant ships from Bergen, but a storm severely damaged this expedition, and ultimately twenty of the ships fell into the hands of the English.

In the following year the affairs of England looked alarming, the States-General having induced the king of France to declare war against England, at the same time subsidising the king of Denmark, to enable him to keep a fleet at sea in the service of the allies. It is irrelevant to our main purpose to describe the tactics of the English and allied fleets; it will be only necessary to remind our readers that the English admirals, Monk and Prince Rupert, engaged the Dutch fleet under De Ruyter and Cornelis Van Tromp on the 1st of June, 1666, off the coast of Flanders, and, after a bloody struggle for four days, the English lost two admirals and twenty-three great ships, besides smaller vessels, six thousand men, and two thousand six hundred prisoners, while the losses of the Dutch amounted to four admirals, six ships, two thousand eight hundred soldiers, and eighty sailors. The latter of course claimed the victory, but the Londoners made bonfires as if they were the conquerors. *