Therefore it was decided that the Prince and the transports with the troops should continue to lead the van with three ships of war to guard him, and so, sailing down the Channel, make the coast of England, in the west, and that the bulk of the fleet should remain in the van ready to engage the English should they leave their station and venture into the open straits. But this, though it was the thing he most longed to accomplish, Lord Dartmouth found impossible, for that east wind so favourable to the hopes of the Prince was a tyrant to him and held him helpless abreast of the Long Sands, with his yards and topmasts down incapable of purchasing his anchors, while he beheld some of the Dutch vessels pass within his very sight making triumphantly for the coast he was bidden protect while his ships rode at their station useless as a fishing fleet. And this was in some part the fault of my Lord Dartmouth, who cursed the wind in a passion of misery, for he had ignored the advice of His Majesty, who was a knowing man in naval affairs, which was to anchor east of the Gallopper, so that his ships might be free to move which way they pleased, instead of which he acted on his own sense, which was not equal to the King’s advice; as was proved, for the scouts, who were left at the Gallopper, captured a Dutch transport, and if they had been greater in strength might have served the whole body of the invader the same. Now in full sight of the shores of these two countries, England and France, the Dutch fleet performed their evolutions, with the pomp of war, the discharge of artillery, the music of trumpets and drums, and the salutes of the entire armament to the ship which carried the Prince and his standard as she made her way to the van; and this all under a blue sky crystal-clear that reflected in the tumbling waves lashed by the strong high English wind a hundred tints of azure and water-green, above which the smoke hung in light vapours. The Prince, under full sail, made for Torbay, which was large enough to contain a great number of the transports, but the Dutch pilot, not being just in his reckoning, went past both that port and the next, which was Dartmouth. The third port was Plymouth, but this being a naval station and a well-fortified place, the Prince was by no means inclined to risk a landing there, since he was not certain of the disposition of the inhabitants towards him, and his great object on land, as on sea, was to avoid a combat, since his sole argument for interfering in the affairs of England was the wish of the English themselves and the invitation of their principal nobles, as he had acknowledged in his Declaration, and it would give a very ill look to this claim of his if his landing was opposed by a bloody fight. Yet to tack about to enter Torbay was attended by almost equal danger, since the wind had changed, and Lord Dartmouth with his entire fleet had left Long Sands and was now under full sail in pursuit.