When on Thursday at noon the Dutch came on once more fifty guns, besides those which had arrived from Gravesend, were in position, and a furious fire was opened on them. The Dutch stood on in spite of it, and engaged Upnor Castle and the batteries with the coolest effrontery. Between the broadsides English deserters on board the enemy were heard jeering at the Government that had cheated them of their pay, and under cover of the intrepid attack the fire-ships passed on to where the three great ships were sunk. They were still an easy prey. Their upper works still towered above the water. Not a boat was to be found to stop the progress of the fire-ships. Helpless but defiant still, the old terror of the Dutch drew down to the shore, and taking his stand, cane in hand, with his Guards at his back, where the fire was hottest, watched the humbling of the flag which he and Blake and Oliver had raised so high. The fire-ships had soon done their work: the three finest ships that were left to England were a mass of flames; and no ball had come to end the bitterness of the old general's shame. The Dutch retired with the ebb, and Monk, whom since the morning the anxious King had been summoning to his side to allay the panic in the capital, went up to town. He had saved the dock-yard and two-thirds of the fleet, but it did little to soothe his indignation, and he reached Whitehall at two o'clock next morning storming at those who had rejected his advice to fit out the fleet and treat sword in hand. On his arrival a report was circulated that he had been made Lord High Constable, and the immediate effect seems to have been a restoration of confidence. Something like order and definite purpose was infused into the work of blocking the Thames, and the Dutch thought fit to try and surprise other ports. But everywhere they found to their cost that they had no longer the Board of Admiralty to deal with. The hand of the lord-general was at every point, and wherever they attempted to land they were at once repulsed with loss. They returned to the Nore, but it was only to find that their old enemy had now set his mark there also. Thames and Medway bristled with guns and defensive works, and no further offensive operation was attempted till peace was signed. Whatever was the fact, the country believed that old George had saved it from invasion and the miseries to which it had been exposed by Charles's treacherous councillors. The _Monmouth_ incident was sung in ballads, and the general was compared to his immortal kinsman the great Sir Richard Grenville. Parliament met in a rage. Ravenous for a scapegoat, they went into committee on the late miscarriages, and the first result was a vote of thanks to the lord-general.