[178] Martin Tromp, who fought this action, is often confounded with his even more famous son, Cornelis Van Tromp. In Dutch history he is always called Tromp. There would seem to have been five actions in the years 1652 and 1653. The first between Blake and Tromp, off Dover, May 29, 1652, when Blake was successful; the second in December, in which Blake was thoroughly beaten. After this occasion, Tromp placed the broom at his mainmast-head. The third on February 28, 1653, off Portland, when the Dutch were beaten, and lost three hundred merchantmen they had previously captured. The fourth on June 2, when the Dutch were again beaten. The fifth on August 10, an indecisive action, wherein Monk commanded the English instead of Blake, and Tromp was killed, leaving De Witt in command. The action between Ayscough and De Ruyter was fought on August 26, 1652.—See Sir E. Cust’s ‘Lives of the Admirals,’ etc., i. p. 370. [179] Art. xiii. of this treaty requires the striking of the flag (Macpherson, ii. p. 453). [180] _Vide_ Macpherson, ii. pp. 442-444. [181] Ricardo’s ‘Anatomy of Navigation Laws.’ [182] As all Cromwell’s Acts were ignored, the new laws were dated from the death of Charles I.; hence the Navigation Act of Charles II. is dated as passed in the _twelfth_ of his regnal years, although really in the _first_ of his actual reign. [183] The principal enacting clauses of this Act are given in Macpherson, ii. pp. 484-486. Roger Coke, in his ‘Discourse on Trade,’ states that owing to the Acts of 1651 and 1660, the building of ships in England had become one-third dearer. [184] A full account is given by Gérard Brandt of this celebrated action, quoted in Sir E. Cust’s ‘Lives of the Admirals,’ vol. ii. pp. 452-454. [185] All the accounts of the respective losses of the two fleets vary; but it is clear, from the life of Sir W. Penn, that the English had quite enough of the battle (Cust, vol. ii. p. 384). [186] There is no doubt that in this raid on the English coast the Dutch were successful in doing a great amount of damage to the English marine; but at the same time more credit is due than has been usually given to Sir Edward Spragge, who, on two successive days, with only a small force of five frigates and seventeen fire-ships, repulsed the Dutch fleet under Van Nes, though on the first he was compelled to fall back for a few hours under the guns of Tilbury Fort. Van Nes had been sent by De Ruyter to force his way up the Thames, and Spragge deserves to be recorded as the English admiral who stopped his further advance (Cust, vol. ii. p. 391). There is at Hampton Court an original painting by Vandevelde of the later action of August 1673, in which Spragge was drowned.