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The flames and the smoak

Soe increased theyr woe,
That they knewe not whither
To run nor to goe:
Some to shun the fyre
Lept into the flood,
And there they did perish
In water and mud.

Oure guns we kept firyng,
Still shoutyng amaine;
Whilst many a proud Spaniard
Was on the place slaine:
The rest, being amazed,
For succour did cry;
But all was in vaine-

They had noe where to fly.

At length, being forced,
They thought it most fitt
Unto the brave English men
For to submit:

And soe a conclusion

At last we did make,
Upon such conditions
As was fitt to take.

The Spanish Armado
Did England no harm-
'Twas but a bravado
To give us alarm;
But with oure five frigats

We did them bumbaste,1

And made them of English men's
Valour to taste.

When this noble victory

We did obtaine,

Then home we returnèd
To England again;
Where we were received
With wellcomes of joy
Because with five frigats
We did them destroy.

1 Bombard.

ANONYMOUS.

THE ROYAL VICTORY.1

LET England and Irelande and Scotlande rejoyce,
And render thanksgivyng with hearte and with voice:
He's surely fanatick that nowe will not sing,
Is false to the kingdom and foe to the King;
For he that will grutch
Oure fortune, is suche

As deals with the Devil

And eke with the Dutch.

For why should my nature or conscience repine
At takyng his life that would faine take mine?

Soe high a victory wee could not commande,
Had it not been gain'd bye an Almighty hand:
The great Lord of Battels did perfect this work
For God and the King and the good Duke of York,
Whose courage was suche
Against the Low Dutch,

Who vapour'd and swagger'd,

Like lords in a hutch:

But let the bold Hollander burn, sinke or swimme— They have honour enough to be beaten bye him.

Fyre, aire, earth and water, it seems, were employ'd
In striving for conquest, which we have enjoyed;
No honour, or profit, or safety can spring

To those who doe fyght against God and the King.

1 This, as a broadside has it, was "obtain'd-with the Providence of Almighty God-on June 3, 1665," by the Duke of York (afterwards James II). The Duke fell in with the Dutch fleet, off Harwich, blew up the Dutch admiral's ship, took eighteen first-raters, and sank fourteen other vessels of different ratings. The duke-so excellent an admiral, yet, alas, so poor a king !—was also in command of the English fleet when it and the French allies fell foul of the Dutch in Southwold Bay, May 28, 1672; an action that was bloody and obstinate yet so indecisive that, although the duke chased the Hollanders down to their own coasts, it was not really finished till Prince Rupert defeated Ruyter in the following year, when they agreed thereafter to strike to the British flag on its own seas.

The battel was hot
And bloodilie fought;

The fyre was like rain,

And like hayle was the shott;

For in this ingagement ten thousand did bleed
Of Flemmings, who now are the Low Dutch indeed!

In this cruell conflict stout Opdam was slaine
By ye great Duke of York, and lies sunke in the maine;
'Twas from the Duke's frigat that he had his doome,
And by the Duke's valour he was overcome :

It was his goode fate

To fall at that rate

Who sinke under princes

Are buried in state:

Suche courage fortune in one grave must lye;
It is a greate honour bye greate hands to dye.

The gallant younge fellow, the son of Van Trump 1— Whose braines were beat out bye the head of the "Rump❞—

Engaging with Holmes, a brave captain of ours,
Retreated to Neptune's salte-waterie bowers;
His fate it grew grimme,

He noe longer could swimme;

But he that caught fishes,

Now fishes catch him.

They eat upp our fishe, without reasone or lawes;
But now they must pay for the cooking and sauze.

2

1 These references to the Van Tromps, father and son, are all wrong. Marten the elder (who had sailed up and down the Channel with a broom at his masthead, on the supposition that he had swept the English from the seas) lost thirty sail and was killed in an engagement with Monk, off the Dutch coast, July 31, 1653; while Monk-whom Charles II made Duke of Albemarle for his chief share in the Restoration-was certainly a long way from ever being the head of the Rump' Parliament, which dissolved itself in March 1660, three months after Monk returned from his five years' governance of Scotland. Cornelius, the son of Marten, died peacefully in Amsterdam in 1691.

66

2 This was just the old, old complaint against Dutch and French fishermen poaching in English waters, which was done very largely at that time, and often caused fights when the English fishermen caught them; it has continued ever since, but to a far less extent during the past thirty years.

To mocke at men's miserie is not mine aime,
It never can add to an Englishman's fame;
But I may rejoyce that the battel is wonne,
Because in the victory God's will is done.
When Justice appears
In suche greate affaire,

1

Who will for Amboyna 1
Plague them and theirs?

For he that did comber his conscience with guilt,
In shedding of bloode, his own shall be spilt.

In this cruell contest (our fortune was suche)
We tooke eighteen men-o'-war from the Dutch;
And likewise (as then the occasion requir'd,
And as God would have it) fourteen more we fir'd
At Amboyna, when

They tortur'd our men,

They look'd not to have
The same dealt out agen :

With fyre and with water their sinews were crackt— In fyre and in water these dy'd for the fact.

According as our God of Battel commanded,

The best of their vessels we fyr'd and stranded,-
All shippes, men-o'-war. (For what pow'r hath man,
To fyght with that army, when God leads the van?)
They steere and they stemme;

But 'twas soe extream,

Our men were neare dying

With killing of them:

They lost, when the muskets and cannons soe thunder'd, Twice soe manye thousand as we have lost hundred.

'Twould make a brave Englishman's heart leap to see 't, But forty shippes made an escape from their fleet,

1 On Feb. 7, 1623, the Dutch settlers on the island of Amboina (Moluccas) massacred the British factors for a supposed conspiracy to turn the Dutch off the island. It appears that nothing was done in direct retaliation; it is also curious that the balladist should have in mind this historical incident, forty-two years after it happened, yet make such a muddle about Admiral Van Tromp and his son-unless, as regards the latter, the ballad was written on hearing the first news of the battle with the misstatement that Cornelius had been killed there.

Whych our men pursue with muche courage and strengthe,

'Tis doubtless but we shall surprise them at lengthe. If God be our guide

And stande bye our side,

We shall be befriended

With fayre winde and tide :

If Providence prosper us with a goode gale,
The Dutch nor the Devil shall ever prevail.

Prince Rupert like lightning flew through their fleete;
Like flame mix't with powder their army did meete;
Ten thousand slaine bodies the ocean o'erspread,
That in few houres' distance were living then dead:
Their admirals all,

Save one, there did falle,

For Death did commande
Like a Chief-General :

Bold Smith in the "Mary" did sheare out his way,
As reapers doe wheat, or mowers doe hay.

Brave Lawson and Minn there did play both their parts,
And did empty their guns in their enemies' hearts;
The burly fat Dutchmen being cut out in slipps,
Their vessels did looke more like shambles than shippes.
God prosper the Fleete,

And sende they may meete
De Ruiter,1 to make up

The conquest compleate:

God blesse all the Princes, and every thing

That fyghtes for ye kingdom and prayes for ye King. ANONYMOUS.

1 This prayer was not answered-perhaps to the chagrin of the balladist, unless he also put this down to "God's will "-for De Ruiter died, in the harbour of Syracuse eleven years after this battle, from the effects of a wound he had received during an engagement with a French fleet in the Straits of Messina.

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