cent., and to be repaid by the taxes till all were discharged. But the losses by the fire had incapacitated the money lenders at this crisis, and Charles, therefore, most unwisely listened to the suggestion of Sir William Coventry, to lay up the principal ships in ordinary, and send out only two light squadrons to interrupt the enemy's trade in the channel and the German Ocean. The duke of York at once declared that this was directly to invite Holland to insult the English coasts, and plunder the maritime counties; but the want of money overruled the duke, and the consequences were precisely what he foresaw.
Charles hoped to evade the danger of this unguarded state by a peace. Louis of France, who was anxious to conquer Flanders, made overtures through lord Jermyn, now earl of St. Albans, who lived at Paris, and was said to be married to the queen-mother, and he also at the same time opened negotiations with Holland, to enforce an abstinence of assistance to the Flemings from that quarter, and to make peace betwixt Holland and England. These measures effectual, he would be set free from any demands of Holland to assist them against England, and he would bind Charles to afford no aid to the Spaniards. Charles was perfectly willing to accede to these plans, so that he might not be called on for more money, and after a time it was agreed that commissioners should meet at Breda to settle the terms of peace. France was to restore the West Indian islands taken from England, and England was to oppose no obstacle to Louis's designs against Spain. But as hostilities were not suspended, De Witt, the Dutch minister, still burning for revenge for the injuries committed by the English on the coast of Holland, declared that he would still "set such a mark upon the English coast as the English had left upon that of Holland."
He knew the unprotected state of the Thames, and he ordered the Dutch fleet, to the amount of seventy sail, to draw together at the Nore. The command was intrusted to De Ruyter and the brother of De Witt. The English, roused by the danger, threw a chain across the Medway at the stakes, mounted the guns on the batteries, and got together a number of fireships: but here the consequence of the heartless conduct of the government to the seamen and workmen who had been employed by them hitherto and defrauded of their pay became apparent. No sense of patriotism could induce them to work for the government. The commissioners of the navy were nine hundred thousand pounds in debt, notwithstanding the liberal supplies of parliament, and the merchants would not furnish further stores except for ready money. One portion of the Dutch fleet sailed up as far as Gravesend, the other was ordered to destroy the shipping in the Medway. The fort at Sheerness was in such a miserable condition, that the Dutch guns quickly levelled it to the ground. Monk had been sent down to defend the mouth of the Medway, and he raised batteries, sunk fire ships in the narrowest part of the channel before the boom, and placed guard-ships for its protection. But the Dutch found out another channel accessible at high water, and running their fire-ships on the boom, broke the chain, silenced the batteries, and burnt the guard-ships. Monk retreated to Upnor Castle, but the Dutch soon appeared before it with their squadron; the castle was not supplied with powder, and few of the ships in the river had any in them. The Royal Charles was taken, the finest ship in the English fleet, the Royal James, the Oak, and the London were burnt. A still greater mortification, was to find numbers of the incensed English sailors manning the Dutch vessels, who shouted, "Before we fought for tickets, now we fight for dollars." Had De Ruyter pushed on for London, he might; have destroyed all the merchant ships in the river; but Prince Rupert at Woolwich having sunk a number of ships to block up the channel, and raised batteries to sweep the passage, it was easier to commit devastations on the southern coast, and this squadron, under Van Ghent, dropped down to the Nore and joined the main fleet. For six weeks the Hollanders sailed proudly along our coasts, harassing the inhabitants, and attempting to burn the ships at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Torbay. Twice De Ruyter attempted again to ascend the Thames, but by this time, in addition to the force of Rupert, Sir Edward Spragge was posted with eighteen sail of the line to oppose him.
But the panic on land was inconceivable. "The people of Chatham," says Clarendon, "which is naturally an array of seamen and officers of the navy, who might and ought to have secured all those ships, which they had time enough to have done, were in distraction; their chief officers have applied all those boats and fighter vessels, which should have towed up the ships, to carry away their own goods and household stuff, and given what they left behind for lost. Nothing," he says, "would have been easier than to have destroyed Chatham, and all the ships which lay higher up the river. But London was still worse. The noise of this, and the flames of the ships which were burning, made it easily believed in London that the enemy had done all that they might have; they thought they were landed in many places, and that their fleet was come up as far as Greenwich. Nor was the confusion there less than it was in the court itself, where they who had most advanced the war, and reproached all those who had been against it as men who had no public spirit, and were not solicitous for the honour and glory of the nation—and who had never spoken of the Dutch but with scorn and contempt, as a nation rather to be cudgelled than fought with—were now the most dejected men that can be imagined; railed very bitterly at those who had advised the king to enter into that war, which had already sacrificed so many gallant men, and would probably ruin the kingdom, and wished for a peace on any terms." All the world, he says, rushed to Whitehall, and entered at pleasure, some advising the court to quit the metropolis, and "a lord, who would be thought one of the greatest soldiers in Europe, to whom the Tower was committed, lodging there only one night, declared 'that it was not tenable,' and desired not to be charged with it, whereupon those who had taken their money there, carried it away again."
This is a melancholy picture of what a weak and profligate government can reduce a great country to in less than six years. "It was said," observes Macaulay, "that the very day of that great humiliation, the king feasted with the ladies of his seraglio, and amused himself with hunting a moth about the supper-room. Then, at length, tardy justice was done to the memory of Oliver. Everywhere
