so I struck one of them, and the rest put out the candle and took hold of me as though they would have torn me to pieces, so that I am almost beside myself, not knowing what to do.” [Illustration: FITTING OUT AN EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH WEST INDIAN MERCHANTMAN. By a Contemporary Artist. Observe the elaborate stern gallery.] When Blake wrote to Cromwell in August, 1655, from on board the _George_, he complained of various matters. When he had wished to blaze away at the Spanish fleet there was a little wind “and a great sea,” so that he could not make use of the lower tier of guns. This arose from the old mistake of having the gun-ports too near the water’s edge. Furthermore, “some of the ships had not beverage for above four days, and the whole not able to make above eight, and that a short allowance; and no small part both of our beverage and water was stinking.” ... “Our ships are extreme foul, winter drawing on, our victuals expiring, all stores failing, and our men falling sick through the badness of drink and through eating their victuals boiled in salt water for two months’ space. Even now the coming of the supply is uncertain (we received not one word from the Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy by the last); and, though it come timely, yet if beer come not with it, we shall be undone that way.” Again he writes from the _George_, “at sea, off Lagos,” in 1657: “The _Swiftsure_, in which I was, is so foul and unwieldy through the defects of her sheathing laid on for the voyage of Jamaica, that I thought it needful to remove into the _George_.” The importance of the Anglo-Dutch wars consists, _inter alia_, in the display of tactics that must now be mentioned, for this, if you please, represents the period of transition. We dealt some time back with the lack of tactics of the Elizabethan period, and saw that at least there was in existence a yearning after the line-ahead formation. The object of this is, of course, to enable each ship to fire into the enemy her very utmost, and give her opponent the benefit of a broadside. But it was not till the seventeenth century that this theory got a real foothold. Between 1648 and 1652 certain fighting instructions were issued for the English Navy, and may be summed up as follows: The fleet was not to engage the enemy if the latter should seem more numerous. On sighting the enemy, the vice-admiral and rear-admiral respectively were to form wings with their ships, to come up on either side of the admiral and to keep close to him. When the admiral gave the signal, each ship was to engage the hostile ship nearest to him, the admiral tackling the admiral of the enemy. Care must be taken not to leave any of their own ships in distress, and commanders of all small craft were to keep to windward of the fleet and to look out for fire-ships.