IV. the provision respecting the Catholics was added to CHAP. satisfy the scruples of the lord keeper. By the public A.D. 1672 it was received with expressions of applause or vituperation, as men were swayed by interest or religion. Its opponents complained that it tolerated popery, and consequently idolatry; that, by affording encouragement to schism, and the opportunity of meeting to the factious, it must tend to weaken the stability both of the church and of the throne; and that it claimed for the king a power subversive of a free constitution, -the power of dispensing with the laws. In reply, it was contended by the advocates of indulgence, that religious opinion was beyond the control of government, and that no people could be powerful abroad, as long as they were divided by dissension at home; that the public exercise of their worship was still forbidden to the Catholics; that the indulgence, by removing religious discontent, was calculated to strengthen both the church and the throne; that no claim was set forth by the king, which did not by ancient usage belong to the crown; and that, of necessity, the power of dispensing with the law in matters ecclesiastical grew out of the ecclesiastical supremacy, and in civil matters, out of the very nature of government; for no form of government could be perfect, in which the executive power did not possess the means of providing for the exigencies of the state during the intervals when the legislative power was not assembled: that to dispense with the penal laws respecting religion had been the practice of every sovereign since the reformation; and that the king himself, during the late war with Holland, had suspended the trade and navigation acts without exciting contradiction or murmur. The result showed the power of interest over principle. The CHAP. dissenters, who had been in the habit of confining A.D. 1672. within the narrowest limits the pretensions of the IV. crown, gratefully accepted the indulgence, and presented by their ministers an address of thanks to the king; while the ardent friends of orthodoxy began to dispute their own doctrine of passive obedience, and to think that the prerogative ought to be fettered in those cases in which it might operate in opposition to their own claims and possessions.1 In a few days appeared the English and French declarations of war. Louis was content to assert that, after the many insults which he had suffered from the arrogance of the States, to dissemble his resentment March 17. would be to detract from his glory. Charles condescended to enumerate the several causes of his displeasure, the unwillingness of the States to regulate with him according to treaty the commerce of the two nations in the East Indies, their perfidious detention of the English traders in Surinam, their refusal to strike to his flag in the narrow seas; and the repeated insults which had been offered to him personally by injurious medals and defamatory publications. It was his duty to maintain the honour of his crown, to preserve the trade and commerce of the nation, and to 1 For these particulars and reasonings, see Parker, 251-258; Parl. Hist. iv.; App. xli. xlii; Arlington to Gascoign, 66; James, i. 455. It is often said, but certainly without authority, that the lord keeper refused to put the seal to the declaration. Had this been the case, he would probably have been dismissed in March instead of November. 2 The negotiations on this subject show that the king claimed as a right what the Hollanders would yield only as a compliment.Parker, 106-109. "You must always know my mind and resolu tion," says Charles to Downing, "is not only to insist upon the "having my flag saluted when on their very shores (as it was always "practised), but in having my dominion of the seas asserted, and "Van Ghent exemplarily punished" (Jan. 16, 1672).-Lord King's Life of Locke, i. 76. " 1 IV. protect from oppression the persons of his subjects. CHAP. But, if this consideration compelled him to appeal to A.D. 1672 arms, it was still his intention to "maintain the true "intent and scope of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle," in all alliances which he "had made, or should make, "in the progress of the war, to preserve the ends "thereof inviolable, unless provoked to the contrary." In a few days the king of Sweden, the second party April 4. to the triple alliance, acceded to the designs of Charles and Louis, and, under the specious pretence of preserving the peace of Germany, bound himself by a second treaty to make war on any prince of the empire who should undertake to aid the States in the approaching war between them and the king of France,2 The Dutch were the first at sea; and De Ruyter, 1 Parl. Hist. iv. 512. Dumont, vii. 163, 164. "Yet," says Marvell, "it is as clear as the sun that the French had by the "treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle agreed to acquiesce in their former con"quests in Flanders; and that the English, Swede, and Hollander, "were reciprocally bound to be aiding against whomsoever should "disturb that regulation."-Marvell, ii. 482. This, though it has been repeated hundreds of times, is far from being an accurate exposition of the transaction. The real object of the triple alliance was to compel the crowns of France and Spain to make peace on the terms already offered by France, and to guarantee to Spain the provinces in the Netherlands which should remain to her after that peace-Tant pour aider à faire finir par leur intervention la guerre qui s'estoit alors allumée entre les deux couronnes, que pour guarantir aussi le plus fortement et efficacement, que faire si pourroit, la paix. The peace was accordingly made at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the kings of England and Sweden, and the States, signed the act of guaranty-promettent par ces presentes de guarantir le dit traitéand promised if Louis were, under any pretext whatever, to invade any of the territories belonging to Spain, aucun des royaumes, estats, pays, on sujets du Roy catholique,-to employ all their forces in resisting the aggression and obtaining reparation.-See the act of guaranty in Dumont, vii. 107. In the treaty between Louis and Charles, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was confirmed, and no infraction of it took place during the war. IV. CHAP. With seventy-five men-of-war, and a considerable numA.D. 1672. ber of fire-ships, stationed himself between Dover and Calais, to prevent the intended junction of the French and English fleets. The duke of York could muster no more than forty sail at the Nore; but with these he contrived, under the cover of a fog, to pass unMay 4 noticed by the enemy, and, proceeding to St. Helen's, awaited the arrival of the French squadron under May 10. D'Estrées. The combined fleet now sailed in search May 3. of the enemy, whom they discovered lying before May 19. Ostend. But the prudence of De Ruyter refused to engage even on equal terms. Availing himself of the shallows, he kept his opponents at bay, and baffled all their manoeuvres with a skill which extorted their admiration. At last he reached Goree, and the duke returned to Southwold Bay, on the coast of Suffolk, that his ships might take in their full complement of men and provisions.1 In a few days, De Ruyter learned, from the captain of a collier, the situation and employment of the May 27. English fleet. He suddenly resolved to become the aggressor, sailed from Goree in the evening with his whole force, and would probably have surprised his enemies at anchor, had it not been for the sagacity of Cogolin, the commander of a French frigate. That officer, on account of his ignorance of the coast, had cast anchor during the night at a distance of some May 28. miles from Southwold Bay. At the first dawn he descried two Dutch men-of-war of equal force, which immediately brought to, and stood from him, and, concluding from these motions that the main body could not be far distant, he discharged his guns in succession as a signal. James immediately ordered every ship to 1 James, i. 457-461. Miscel. Aul. 69, 70. BATTLE OF SOUTHWOLD BAY. 211 IV. get under weigh, and take her station in the line; but CHAP. the wind was easterly, and the tide to leeward, and not A.D. 1672. more than twenty sail could form to meet the enemy. The duke, with a part of the red squadron, opposed De Ruyter and the fleet from the Maese; the earl of Sandwich, with part of the blue, Van Ghent and the fleet from Amsterdam. D'Estrées received Banker with the ships from Zeeland; but both stood under easy sail to the southward, and, as they never came to close action, suffered comparatively but little injury.' Seldom has any battle in our naval annals been more stubbornly contested. The English had to struggle with a bold and experienced enemy, and against the most fearful disparity of force. Their ships were so intermingled among the multitude of their opponents, that they could afford little support to each other; still they fought with the most desperate courage, hoping to protract the action till they could be joined by the remainder of the fleet in the bay. About eleven o'clock, the duke's ship, the Prince, of one hundred guns, had lost above one-third of her men, and lay a motionless wreck on the water. Having ordered her to be towed out of danger, he passed through the window of the cabin into his shallop, rowed through the enemy's fire, and unfurled the royal standard in the St. Michael, of ninety guns." The earl of Sandwich, in the Royal James, repeatedly beat off the enemies by whom he was surrounded, carried by boarding a seventy-gun ship which lay athwart his hawse, and killed Van Ghent, the com 1 James, i. 461-465. * Ibid. 465, 466. So afraid were the sailors of fire-ships, that the duke expressly forbade the name to be mentioned during the action. If any man saw a fire-ship approaching, he was ordered to communicate his suspicion in a whisper to the nearest officer (465). |