Crowds assembled at Whitehall,
and insulted the King and his ministers as the cause of the present
misfortunes, while at Deptford and Wapping, the sailors and their
wives paraded the streets, shouting that the ill-treatment of our
sailors had brought these things about, and so hostile were their
manifestations that the officials of the Admiralty scarce dared show
themselves in the streets.
Cyril had remained at Chatham, the Duke having recommended him to Sir
Edward Spragge, and he, with some other gentlemen and a few sailors,
had manned the battery opposite Upnor.
The great proportion of the Dutch ships were still at the Nore, as it
would have been dangerous to have hazarded so great a fleet in the
narrow water of the Medway. As it was, two of their men-of-war, on
the way back from Chatham, ran ashore, and had to be burnt. They had
also six fire-ships burnt, and lost over a hundred and fifty men.
Leaving Admiral Van Ness with part of the Fleet in the mouth of the
Thames, De Ruyter sailed first for Harwich, where he attempted to
land with sixteen hundred men in boats, supported by the guns of the
Fleet. The boats, however, failed to effect a landing, being beaten
off, with considerable loss, by the county Militia; and Ruyter then
sailed for Portsmouth, where he also failed. He then went west to
Torbay, where he was likewise repulsed, and then returned to the
mouth of the Thames.
On July 23rd, Van Ness, with twenty-five men-of-war, sailed up the
Hope, where Sir Edward Spragge had now hoisted his flag on board a
squadron of eighteen ships, of whom five were frigates and the rest
fire-ships.
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