[15] Admiral Colomb (_Naval Warfare_) traced the Dutch defeat--or perhaps one should write, “lack of advantage”--mainly to the fact that the Dutch had a larger mercantile marine to protect, and merely mentions incidentally the constant complaints of Van Tromp and others to the inferiority of Dutch warships compared to English ones. But since so many of the Dutch merchantmen carried very fair armaments, and as “tactics” played no part in this war, I prefer to accept the explanation of the Dutch Admirals, none of whom assigned failures to the more obvious excuse of being hampered by convoys. Dutch contemporary accounts of this and following wars appear generally to be nearer the actual truth than English ones. [16] Churnock, _ex_ Fincham. [17] Charles II always had an eye for and interest in improvements in detail, and himself invented new forms of hull, which, however, did not come up to his expectations. Both he and James wore devoted to yachting and steered their own boats. A singular defect of all the Stuarts in naval matters was their inability to appreciate the importance of the human as well as the material element. In the Cromwell régime, all the old abuses in connection with food, clothing and delayed pay, wore done away with; to re-appear, however, almost as bad as ever soon after the Restoration. [18] ENGLISH. Ships 62 Men 27,725 Guns 4,500 Frigates, etc. 23 DUTCH. Ships 36 Men 12,950 Guns 2,494 Frigates, etc. 14 [19] See Crimean War in a later chapter for a revival of this. [20] Fincham. [21] He was Master of the fleet at Beachy Head and also at Cape La Hogue. [22] The _Pembroke_ (sixty-four) captured by the French in 1710, in this war, had her armament reduced to fifty guns by them. [23] This extraordinary story of a soldier saving the fleet is made all the stranger by the fact that Sir Hovenden Walker, the Admiral, was a teetotaller and a vegetarian, an almost unheard of thing in those days. [24] Fincham. [25] See later references to Sir William White and Sir Philip Watts. [26] Their recklessness was such that Peter had to give orders that no Swedish ship was to be boarded unless the superior officers were killed. Swedish captains, attacked by superior forces, made a regular practice of allowing themselves to be boarded and then blowing up their ships! [27] Colomb. [28] For a very full and detailed account see Chapter XV. of Colomb’s _Naval Warfare_.