Reign of Charles II. (Continued) page 5

The present year, 1671, was chiefly employed in preparing for the war with Holland. Though Charles was under condition to become an avowed catholic, he published a proclamation, declaring that as he had always adhered to the true religion as established, he would still maintain it by all the means in his power. De Witt, who was aware of what was going on, hastened to make a treaty with Spain, and Louis demanded a free passage through the Netherlands to attack Holland, or declared that he would force one at the head of sixty thousand men. Whilst war was thus impending, the duchess of York, Hyde's daughter, died. She had been for some time a professed catholic. Henrietta Maria, the mother of Charles, had died in August, 1669, at the castle of Colombe, near Paris.

Charles and his ministers of the cabal, bribed' by Louis, and even the mistress of Buckingham, lady Shrewsbury, pensioned with ten thousand livres a year, prepared to rush into the war against Holland, in the hope of retrieving past disgraces, and securing some valuable prizes. At the close of the last session, on pretence of maintaining the triple alliance, the very thing they were intending to betray, and of keeping Louis of France in check, whom they were, in fact, going to assist in his aggressions, they procured eight hundred thousand pounds from the commons, and then immediately prorogued the parliament. But this most unprincipled trick was nothing to what they were preparing to perpetrate.

During the recess of parliament, it was suddenly announced by proclamation on the 2nd of January, 1672, that the exchequer was shut. To understand what was meant by this most flagitious act, we must recollect that Charles was in the habit of anticipating the supplies granted, by borrowing of the London bankers and goldsmiths, and granting them some branch of revenue, to refund themselves with interest. He had at this time obtained one million three hundred thousand pounds in this manner, but calculating that the Dutch war could not be carried on without further means than the recent parliamentary grant, it was therefore announced that government was not prepared to pay the principal borrowed, or in other terms; could grant the annual security of the incoming taxes, but the lenders must be content with the interest. This would enable the government to receive the revenue themselves, instead of paying their just debts with it. The consternation was terrible. The exchequer had hitherto kept its engagements honourably, and had thus obtained this liberal credit. The lenders, in their turn, could not meet the demands of their creditors. The exchange was in a panic: many of the bankers and mercantile houses failed, a great shock was given to credit throughout the kingdom, and many annuitants, widows, and orphans, who had deposited their money with them, were reduced to ruin. Ashley and Clifford were said to have been the authors of the scheme; but Ashley was a man of infinite schemes, and probably was the original inventor. Government declared that the postponement of payment should only be for one year; but the greater part of the money was never again repaid, and this sum, so fraudently obtained, became the nucleus of the present national debt.

The manner in which the government commenced the war on Holland was characterised by the same infamous disregard of all honourable principle. Though Charles had bound himself to make war on the Dutch, he had no cause of quarrel with them, whatever he pretended to have. When Louis menaced them with hostilities, Charles offered himself as a mediator, and the Dutch regarded him as such. Under these circumstances he sent Sir Robert Holmes with a large fleet to intercept a Dutch fleet of merchantmen coming from the Levant, and calculated to be worth a million and a half. Holmes, in going out, saw the squadron of Sir Edward Spragge at the back of the Isle of Wight, which had recently returned from destroying the Algerine navy; and though his orders were to take all the vessels along with him that he could find at Portsmouth, or should meet at sea, lest Spragge should obtain some of the glöry and benefit, he passed on and gave him no summons. The next day he descried the expected Dutch fleet; but to his chagrin he found that it was well convoyed by seven men-of-war, and the merchantmen, sixty in number, were many of them well armed. The vast preparations of Louis, and some recent movements of the English, had put them on their guard. Notwithstanding Charles's hypocritical offers of friendly mediation, he had withdrawn the honourable Sir William Temple from the Hague, and sent thither the unprincipled Downing, a man so detested there, that the mob chased him away. Van Nesse, the Dutch admiral, successfully resisted the attack of Holmes, who only managed to cut off one man-of-war and four merchantmen. The chagrin of Charles was equal to the disgrace with which this base action covered him and his ministers. Both his own subjects and foreigners denounced the action in fitting terms, and Holmes was styled "the cursed beginner of the two Dutch wars."

There was nothing now for it but to declare war, which was done by both England and France. Charles mustered up a list of trumpery charges, which, bad as they were, would have come with a better grace before attacking his allies without any notice - the detention of English traders in Surinam; the neglect to strike the Dutch flag to him in the narrow seas; and refusal to regulate their trade relations according to the treaty. Louis simply complained of insults, and declared his intention to assert his glory. Under such thin veils were put the real intentions of Louis and his bond-slave Charles.

The Dutch fleet was not long in appearing at sea with seventy-five sail under De Ruyter. On the 3rd of May the duke of York, admiral of the English fleet, decried this powerful armament posted betwixt Calais and Dover, to prevent his junction with the French fleet. He had only forty sail of the line, but he managed to pass unobserved, and join the French squadron under D'Estrees, La Rabiniere, and Du Quesne. On the 28th they came to an engagement near Southwold Bay; the battle was terrible - scarcely any of these sanguinary conflicts of those times with the Dutch more so.

Owing to the wind and tide, not more than twenty of the English sail could engage the enemy. The French squadron under D'Estrees formed in opposition to the Zeeland squadron of Banker; but they stood away under easy sail southward, and never came to action; in fact, it was the well-known policy of Louis to allow the Dutch and English to play the bulldogs with each other, and to spare his own infant navy. The duke of York, with a part of the red squadron, opposed De Ruyter; the earl of Sandwich, with part of the blue, Van Ghent and the Amsterdam fleet. The English were so surrounded by the multitudes of the enemy, that they could afford little aid to each other, and were exposed on all sides to a most merciless fire. By eleven o'clock the duke of York's ship was totally disabled, and had lost one-third of her men. He himself escaped out of a cabin window, and got on board the St. Michael, of seventy guns. Poor old admiral Montague, earl of Sandwich, in the Royal James, did marvels of valour. Surrounded by the enemy, he boarded a seventy gun- ship that lay athwart his hawse, and killed Yan Ghent, the Dutch admiral; but assailed by two fire- ships, he destroyed one, and the other destroyed him. The Royal James was blown up, and thus the old man, who had so long figured both under the commonwealth and crown, finished his career. He had a foreboding of his fate, and told Evelyn when he took leave of him to go on board, that he would see him no more. Two hundred of his men escaped.

In the afternoon the St. Michael, to which the duke had fled, was also sinking, and he had to remove to the London. In the evening the Dutch fleet drew off, and the next morning the two divisions of the English fleet joined and offered battle, but De Ruyter tacked about and a chase commenced. Twice the English were on the point of pouring their broadsides into the enemy, when a fog saved them, and on the second day the Dutch took refuge within the Wierings. The duke showed unquestionable courage on this occasion; no real advantage to the country, however, but much cost and damage resulted from this unnatural war to prostrate a Protestant country, to pander to the mad ambition of the French king. Louis all this time was taking advantage of the Dutch being thus engaged. He marched upon Holland with one hundred thousand men, assisted by the military talent of Turenne, Conde, and Luxembourg. He took Orsoi, Burick, Wesel, and Rhinberg on the Rhine, crossed the river at Schenck in the face of the enemy, and overran three of the seven united provinces. The city of Amsterdam itself was in consternation, for the fires of the French camp could be seen from the top of the Stadt House. Even the great De Witt was in despair; but at this crisis Holland was saved by a youth whose family had been jealously thrust from the stadtholdership. This was William of Orange, afterwards William III. of England.

William of Nassau was the nephew of Charles of England, the son of his sister.. He was a young man of a sickly constitution, only then twenty-one years of age, and at that time of no experience in state or military affairs. The house of Nassau had acquired almost sovereign power in Holland, from having rescued the country from the cruel yoke of Spain, and had rendered the office of stadtholder almost synonymous with king. The municipal body, the aristocracy of the country, jealous of the powers and aims of £he house of Orange, at the death of William's father had abolished for ever the office of stadtholder, and placed the government of the country in the hands of the town council, the provincial states, and the states-general. De Witt, the grand pensionary of the province of Holland, was made chief minister, and conducted the government with consummate ability. William of Orange, who was a posthumous child, was a ward of De Witt's. He was at the same time at the head of the Louvestein faction, which was violently opposed to the house of Nassau. But William of Orange stood high in the affections of the people. They regarded with as much jealousy the municipal oligarchy which ruled the cöuntry, as that did the house of Nassau- They felt that the Orange family had achieved the independence of Holland, and, being themselves shut out of all influence in the state affairs, they sympathised with the young prince. Besides, he had a princely fortune, the possession of territories entrenched behind the river Maas, and the dykes of South Holland, not easily invaded, and was not only a prince of the German empire, but of the royal blood of England.

The people, now seeing the critical condition to which, the Louvestein faction had reduced their country, demanded that the command of the army should be put into the hands of William. De Witt, who could not prevent it, endeavoured to persuade the people to bind the prince by an oath never to aspire to the stadtholdership; but the Orange party now seized their opportunity to rouse the people against the oligarchy of burgers, and they did it to such effect, that De Witt and his brother were torn to pieces by the populace before the gates of the palace of the states-general at the Hague. William, who had no share in the murder, however, committed the same grave moral error as he did afterwards in England, in the case of the massacre of Glencoe - he rewarded the murderers, and accepted the office of commander-in-chief. Low as the country was reduced, its very danger was its strongest means of rescue. Germany and Spain, alarmed for the consequences to Europe, sent promises of speedy assistance, and even Charles II. seemed to perceive the folly of his proceedings. The war at sea had brought nothing but expense and bloodshed. If Spain came to a rupture with France, England would lose the benefit of its lucrative Spanish trade. Charles had sent six thousand troops, according to treaty, to assist Louis in Holland, under the command of his son Monmouth, who displayed no talents as a general, but plenty of courage-r-a quality of the family. With him he sent Buckingham, Arlington, and Saville as plenipotentiaries. These ministers now hastened to the Hague, and expressed the friendly feeling of England towards Holland. The dowager princess of Holland, who knew what friendliness Charles had shown towards his nephew. William, who, Buckingham said, did not wish to use Holland like a mistress, but love like a wife, replied, "Truly, I believe you would love us as you do your wife!" a hard hit. From the Hague they proceeded to the camp of Louis, who, however, before he would treat with the Dutch, made the English sign a new treaty that they would not agree to any separate peace.

The terms then proposed by these allies show how little they were aware of the power yet lurking in the invalid but stubborn and subtle young prince of Orange. Charles required, on his part, the dignity of stadtholder for the prince, his nephew, the acknowledgment of England's sovereignty of the narrow seas, ten thousand pounds per annum for liberty of fishing on the English coasts, and the fortresses of Goree, Flushing, and some (fthers as a guarantee for the payment. Louis demanded all their territory lying on the left bank of the Rhine, all such places as they had formerly wrested from Spain, seventeen millions of livres as indemnification of the costs of the war, which he had himself commenced, and an annual gold medal in acknowledgment of his surrendering the three provinces he had now taken, but in reality in retaliation for the medal which the States had cast on the formation of the triple alliance. They were also to grant freedom of worship to the catholics.

William of Orange bade them reject the whole of these conditions. He told them that even were they beaten to the last, they could transport themselves with their wealth to the Indian Archipelago, and then erect in Java and the isles a new and more resplendent Holland, with a new and vast world around them for their empire. The courage of the people rose at the dauntless spirit of their young prince, and they resolved to resist to the last man. William ordered the dikes to be cut; the invaders were obliged by a precipitate retreat to seek their own safety. Amsterdam was saved, and the different towns of Holland stood isolated amid a vast sea, which no enemy could approach without a vast fleet of flat-bottomed boats, and supplies which must be conveyed by the same mode. Meantime William, where he could reach the French, beat them in several smart actions, and thus further raised the courage of his countrymen, whilst forces from Germany were fast pouring down the Rhine to their aid.