william and mart.

103

officers, among whom were Hooke, Shovel, Almonde andEvertsen, pronounced that the summer was too far spent for-either enterprise.* We must suppose that an opinion in whichso many distinguished admirals, both English and Dutch, con-curred, however strange it may seem to us, was in conformitywith what were then the established principles of the art ofmaritime war. But why all these questions could not have beenfully discussed a week earlier, why fourteen thousand troopsshould have been shipped and sent to sea, before it had beenconsidered what they were to do, or whether it would bepossible for them to do anything, we may reasonably wonder.The armament returned to Saint Helens, to the astonishmentand disgust of the whole nation.** The ministers blamed thecommanders: the commanders blamed the ministers. The re-criminations exchanged between Nottingham and Russell wereloud and angry. Nottingham, honest, industrious, versed incivil business, and eloquent in parliamentary debate, wasdeficient in the qualities of a war minister, and was not at allaware of his deficiencies. Between him and the whole bodyof professional sailors there was a feud of long standing. Hehad, some time before the Revolution, been a Lord of theAdmiralty; and his own opinion was that he had then acquireda profound knowledge of maritime affairs. This opinion how-ever he had very much to himself. Men who had passed halftheir lives on the waves, and who had been in battles, stormsand shipwrecks, were impatient of his somewhat pompouslectures and reprimands, and pronounced him a mere pedant,who, with all his book learning, was ignorant of wdiat everycabin boy knew. Russell had always been froward, arrogant

* London Gazette, July 28. 1692. See the resolutions of the Councilof War in Burchett. In a letter to Nottingham, dated July 10., Russell says,“Six weeks will near conclude what we call summer.” Lords’Journals,Dee. 19. 1692.

** Monthly Mercury, Aug. and Sept. 1692.

CHAP.

XIX.

1G92.