‘Twenty odd guns on either side hauled out, Seamen and soldiers full four hundred [stout]. The _Rose_ a fifth-rate, not full thirty guns, Six score brave lads, burthen three hundred tuns.’ George was killed by a ball from the Frenchman’s maintop, but David Condon, his lieutenant, carried on the fight (assisted by that ‘gallant spark,’ Captain Ben Clark of Wapping, ‘in the European of London, a mast ship,’ which carried ten guns), and beat off the assailant. When New England rose against the government of Sir Edmund Andros in April 1689, George had been made a prisoner, but was released by order of the King, though much distrusted by the supporters of the revolution. One reason for publishing the relation was that the base Bostonians, ‘cursed sons of Cham,’ said that the captain had betrayed his convoy (see _Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1690-1_, p. 376; _ib. America and West Indies, 1689-92_, pp. 66, 121, 269; Charnock, _Biographia Navalis_, ii. 98, 308). In 1691 Admiral Russell was in command of the fleet in the Channel, but though he cruised from May to September, achieved nothing (Burchett, pp. 63-91). A satirical ballad, ironically entitled _England’s Triumph at Sea_, probably by the same author as _Torringtonia_, hints that ‘the cherry-cheeked Russell’ was very careful not to meet with his foes (p. 112). Two regiments of marines had been raised in April 1690, and served in the fleet, and the first allusion ballads make to this branch of service is contained in the following lines: ‘We had sea colonels o’ th’ nature of otter, Which either might serve by land or by water, Though of what they have done we hear no great matter.’ In September 1691 Russell’s fleet put into Plymouth in a violent storm, losing two ships, the Coronation, a second-rate, and the Harwich, a third-rate. This disaster is commemorated in _England’s Great Loss by a Storm of Wind_, which exaggerates, as ballads generally do, and makes him lose nine ships (p. 113).