Its naval incidents.
Action off Harwich, 1665. previously to the declaration of war. Charles, however, without waiting for a formal declaration of hostilities, seized one hundred and thirty of their ships, laden with wine and brandy, homeward bound from Bordeaux, conveying them into English ports, where they were condemned as lawful prizes. Though such an act was rightly condemned as unjustifiable by the law of nations, the voice of the people forced the King into the war, and his desire to gain prize-money only accorded too well with the eagerness of the shipowners to plunge into another struggle with their powerful commercial opponents. War was consequently again declared, and a battle off Harwich took place on the 3rd (or 14th N. S.) of June 1665. The Dutch fleet under Cortenaar, Evertz, and Cornelis van Tromp, son of the famous Martin Tromp, was ordered to seek out the English, whose fleet was under the command of the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, and the Earl of Sandwich. It is unnecessary to detail the particulars of this celebrated engagement; suffice it to say that the Dutch lost nineteen ships, burnt and sunk, with about six thousand men. The English lost only four vessels, and about fifteen hundred men; but the Dutch retired, with their remaining ships, to their own coasts, and the Duke of York refrained from pursuing them.[1]
Dutch Smyrna fleet. In the meantime the Dutch Smyrna fleet and several of their East Indiamen, not daring to enter the English Channel, took refuge in the port of Bergen in Norway; but a plot was concerted between the kings of England and Denmark to seize
- ↑ A full account is given by Gérard Brandt of this celebrated action, quoted in Sir E. Cust's Lives of the Admirals,' vol. ii. pp. 452-454.
