5$o Charles II, Naval Expeditions, &c. of the English, Book III
i6§z.The Englilhobtain acompleatVictory .
Loss of theDutch in thethree DaysAction:
And of theEnglilh.
The King of-fers to puthimself a-hoard theDutch Fleet.
The Statesfue forPeace .*
And are fa-voured intheir Suit byCromwel.
when the Dutch retreated to the Sandsbefore Calais, and from thence tided itinto the Wielings. In this Purfuit,threeDutch Men of War were taken byLawson, Marten and Graver, and seve-ral Merchant-Ships byPenne and others ;But Ammunition beginning to fall short,and the Dutch being almost got withinProtection of their own Flats, the Eng-lish gave over the Chafe. The Dutchlost, in these three Day’s Actions, ele-ven Ships of War, and thirty ( Claren-don fays fifty) Merchant Ships, fifteenHundred Men killed, (according toClarendon two Thousand, which werethrown overboard) and a great Numberof Prisoners. On the Side of the Eng-lish, there was but one Ship funk bythemselves, as I have already observed,tho’ the Number of our stain was per-haps not much inferiour to that of theEnemy’s, (f)
About this Time it was, that theKing, believing that he had a great ma-ny Friends amongst the Commanders ofthe English Fleet, made an Offer to theStates of putting himself aboard theirFleet, if he might have the Commandof the English Ships, which should comeover to him. But the States did notthink fit to accept his Offer; for Fearof keeping open a Wour^d they beganto wish healed. Peace is what theynow wanted, and under Hand sued for:And Cromwell, who stood in as greatNeed of it as they, to secure his ownInterest, privately laboured with themfor an Accommodation.
It was about this Time likewise, thatCromwell, by his Artifices, had induced
the Officers of the Army to petition the 1653-Parliament for their Arrears, and a more The Amyexact Payment for the future; which PotionsPthe Parliament complaining of, as an ^Insolence, and ordering the Officers tobe reprimanded for their Presumption ;drew a second Petition from them, de-siring the Parliament to think of re-signing thePower they had so long exer-cised ; And, in Order to this, besought And afterthem, that they would settle a Councilof War, for the Administration of the tJ e on If theGovernment, during the Interval, and Par harried'then dissolve themselves and summon anew Parliament.
This Advice, as it is easy to be con- .j
ceived, was not very well relished, the J
Petition was rejected by a Majority, and Parliarntd" ja Bill was preparing to make it highTreason in all Persons who should at-tempt the like for the future: But whilethey were in the Heat of their De bate,
Cromwell, having concerted Matterswith the principal Officers, came to theHouse, on the twentieth of Mpril, witha small Retinue of Officers and Soldiers, I
and, without any Ceremony, told theMembers, that he came to put an Endto their Power, of which they hadmade so ill Use; and that therefore,without more Deliberation, they wereto depart immediately. He bid theSpeaker, in a furious Tone leave theChair, told the House they had satelong enough, unless they had donpmore good. Then, having reviled som&of the Members, in particular, as theywent out, for their immoral Lives, andall being gone, he ordered one of his
Soldiers
Rapin,
(f) Rapin, who, by the By, affects always tospeak favorably of the Dutch , says : The Dutchlost, in this Engagement, eighteen Men of War,and but eight Merchant-men: But (fays he) their(the Dutch) Historians pretend the English hadone and twenty Ships funk, and three run aslwar.He adds: After Van Tromp had secured the Mer-chant-men, he engaged the English four severalTimes more, but these Actions were of less Im-portance than the foregoing: All which is appa-rently false.
Whitlock , speaking of this Battle, only fays,that the Officers, Mariners and Soldiers of bothParties, behaved with great Courage and Gallan-try ; But that, after a sharp and bloody Fight,the Dutch were wholly routed and overcome, andhad a fore and terrible Loss, both of their Shipsand Men ; That the English , likewise, lost manyMen, but came off with a very great Victory.
Dutch Writets who do what they can tolessen the Loss they sustained in these three En-gagements, allow they lost eight ( Bafnage faysnine) Men of War, and four and twenty Mer-chant-Ships, which is not a great deal short of ourAccounts: And there is a great deal of Reason tobelieve, all Circumstances considered, that their
Loss must have been far greater than any of ourHistorians mention : For some of the Dutch Wri-ters themselves fay, a considerablePart of theFleetof Merchant-men fell into the Hands of the En-glish: Now, a considerable Part of threeHundredmust certainly have been more than thirty. Wehave, likewise, in the Dutch Writers, several ve-ry pompous Accounts of the Behaviour of singleCommanders, which make a pretty Figure intheirHistories, to palliate their general Loss: And,indeed, it is allowed, they behaved most of themvery well: But as, in the Whole, these Accountsamount to no more than what I have said above,I pass them by 5 Tho'the Relation of them wouldstill redound more to the Honour of our Officers.
The Reader has seen above, that, according toall our Accounts,we had but one Ship funk: But,if we will believe th eDutcb,we must have had fivefunk, and they name them too > viz. the Rain-bow, the Saturn , the Sampson, the Rose, and an-other commanded by Captain Button-, And twoburnt, the Charles and the Fairfax. They tellus likewise, that the Mermaduke, the Merlin ,the Pheasant, the King David, the Greyhound ,and the Seven Brothers were rendered so unser-viceable, that they never went to Sea again.