In the pages of Charles Macfarlane’s story, “The Dutch in the Medway,” is to be found a most interesting account of these calamitous days, from which we cull the following extracts: “On the following morning—the memorable morning of the 12th of June—a very fresh wind from the north-east blew over Sheerness and the Dutch fleet, and a strong spring-tide set the same way as the wind, raising and pouring the waters upward from the broad estuary in a mighty current. And now de Ruyter roused himself from his inactivity, and gave orders to his second in command, Admiral van Ghent, to ascend the river towards Chatham with fire-ships, and fighting ships of various rates. Previously to the appearance of de Ruyter on our coasts, his Grace of Albemarle had sunk a few vessels about Muscle Bank, at the narrowest part of the river, had constructed a boom, and drawn a big iron chain across the river from bank to bank, and within the boom and chain he had stationed three king’s ships; and having done these notable things, he had written to Court that all was safe on the Medway, and that the Dutch would never be able to break through his formidable defences. But now van Ghent gave his Grace the lie direct; for, favoured by the heady current and strong wind, the prows of his ships broke through the boom and iron chain as though they had been cobwebs, and fell with an overwhelming force upon the ill-manned and ill-managed ships which had been brought down the river to eke out this wretched line of defence. The three ships, the _Unity_, the _Matthias_, and the _Charles V._, which had been taken from the Dutch in the course of the preceding year—the _Annus Mirabilis_ of Dryden’s flattering poem—were presently recaptured and burned under the eyes of the Duke of Albemarle, and of many thousands of Englishmen who were gathered near the banks of the Medway. “On the following morning (Thursday, the 13th of June) at about ten o’clock, as the tide was rising, and the wind blowing right up the river, van Ghent, who had been lying at anchor near the scene of his yesterday’s easy triumph, unfurled his top-sails, called his men to their guns, and began to steer through the shallows for Chatham. “The mid-channel of the Medway is so deep, the bed so soft, and the reaches of the river are so short, that it is the safest harbour in the kingdom. Our great ships were riding as in a wet dock, and being moored to chains fixed to the bottom of the river, they swung up and down with the tide. But all these ships, as well as many others of lower rates, were almost entirely deserted by their crews, or rather by those few men who had been put in them early in the spring, rather as watchmen than as sailors; some were unrigged, some had never been finished, and scarcely one of them had either guns or ammunition on board, although hurried orders had been sent down to equip some of them and to remove others still higher up the river out of the reach of danger.