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Second Reading

About Capt. John Harman

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In the month of November following he was detached, by the earl of Sandwich, with eighteen ships, to bring home the fleet from Gottenburgh. On his return he shifted his flag into the Henry, and distinguished himself too remarkably, in the long action between the duke of Albemarle and the Dutch, to be passed over in general or common terms of approbation. Leading the van of the English fleet, he soon got into the center of the Zealand squadron; and being in a short time completely disabled, one of the enemy's fireships grappled him on the starboard quarter: he was, however, soon freed by the almost incredible exertions of his boatswain, (as it is asserted by all historians, but according to the navy list it appears he was his lieutenant) who having in the midst of the flames loosed the grappling-irons, swung back on board his own ship unhurt. The Dutch bent on the destruction of this unfortunate ship, and seeing the ill-success of the first, sent a second, who grappled her on the larboard side, and with much greater success than the former, for the sails instantly taking fire, the crew were so terrified that near fifty of them, among whom the chaplain is said to have been one, jumped overboard. Sir John seeing this confusion ran instantly, with his sword drawn, among those who remained, and threatened, with instant death, the first man who should attempt to quit the ship, or should not exert himself in quenching the flames. This spirited conduct had the desired effect the crew returning to their duty soon got the fire under: but the rigging being a good deal of it burnt, one of the top-sail yards fell and broke sir John's leg. In the midst of this accumulated distress a third fireship prepared to grapple him; but ere she could effect her purpose, four shot from the Henry's lower-deck guns sunk her. Evertzen, the Dutch vice-admiral now bore up to him, and calling on him to surrender, offered him quarter. Sir John answered him bluntly, "It was not come to that yet," and giving him a broadside killed the Dutch commander, which so intimidated the rest of his adversaries, that they declined all farther contest. The Henry, shattered as she was, her Commander disabled, and great part of her crew killed or wounded was, nevertheless, carried safely into Harwich, whence, sir John having the next day refitted her, as well as the time and circumstances would permit him, and hoping to share in the honour of the last day's engagement, put to sea (notwithstanding his broken leg) but unfortunately, as sir John thought, the action was over ere he reached the fleet.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. John Harman

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HARMAN, Sir John.—This brave, and justly renowned commander was appointed captain of the Gloucester, of fifty-eight guns, in 1664; and, in the following spring, served as lieutenant of the Royal Charles. The office he bore is not, however, to be taken according to' the present meaning affixed to the term. He was, in fact, captain of the ship, as sir William Penn, who was on board the Royal Charles with him, was captain of the fleet. The enemies of the duke of York have taken some pains to asperse the character of sir John Harman, as having been concerned in the business with Brounker. The rage of party can reconcile the greatest absurdities and persuade the most sensible men of the propriety of its dictates: but certainly no man can stand clearer of all blame than he does. The story, as related by unbiassed persons, is simply this. After the action, in which it is admitted, on all hands, the Royal Charles bore so distinguished a part, the duke having retired to his cabin for repose, Brounker, who was one of the gentlemen of his bed-chamber, came to sir John, who was then standing near the helm, and pressed him much to shorten sail, urging as a reason, the risk the duke ran if his ship, the headmost of the fleet, should fall in singly with the enemy upon their own coasts. Sir John ever attentive to, and intelligent in his duty as an officer, answered, "he could do nothing without orders." Brounker accordingly went back into the cabin, and brought him orders, as from the duke, to shorten sail. Sir John obeyed. It must be apparent to any person who will be at the pains of considering the foregoing statement, that, let the blame (if any) lay where it will, not a shadow of it is imputable to sir John, whose subsequent conduct through life proved him one of the last men in the world, who could with justice be charged either with treachery or want of spirit. As a convincing proof no such opinion was entertained of him by government, he received the honour of knighthood, and is said in the navy list to have been appointed, immediately after the action, rear-admiral of the white, and that he hoisted his flag on board the Resolution. This we apprehend to be a mistake, as we find him both in the navy list, and every other document, serving, when the fleet put next to sea under the command of the earl of Sandwich, as rear admiral of the blue on board the Revenge, an highly merited, though very rapid promotion, when we consider scarcely twelve months had elapsed since he first became a commander.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Willoughby Hannam

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HANNAM, or HANHAM, Willoughby,—commanded the Kent, of forty-fix guns, in the year 1660; in the year 1664 he was promoted to the Rainbow, a third rate of fifty-six guns. In the first engagement with the Dutch in the following year, he commanded the Resolution of fifty-six guns, where he neglected not the opportunity afforded him by fortune of signalizing himself exceedingly, it being asserted by some that he sacrificed his ship (which was burnt in this action) by generously interposing between the rear-admiral of the blue (Kempthorne) and a Dutch fireship, which was preparing to board him. Others say that the vice-admiral of Zealand finding the Resolution completely disabled, ordered a fireship to board her: this was performed with success, notwithstanding every effort of her gallant commander to extricate himself, and all the exertion that could possibly be made by sir Edward Spragge, vice-admiral of the blue, for the same purpose. The officers and crew were saved; and captain Hannam was soon afterwards appointed to the Mary, a ship of the same force and rate. In 1668 he was appointed to the Old James, a second rate of seventy guns. In 1672 he commanded the St. George, and was soon removed into the Triumph, a ship of seventy-two guns; in which ship he fatally but gloriously terminated a life, many years of which he had devoted to the service of his country, being killed on the 28th of May 1672, in the action, off Solebay, with the Dutch fleet under the command of De Ruyter.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Thomas Guy

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GUY, Thomas,—was appointed commander of the Oxford in 1665: he was removed the following year into the Assurance, a small fourth rate of thirty-eight guns, this ship being one of those put under the command of sir Robert Holmes, for the attack of the Dutch fleet lying within the islands of Ulie and Schelling. Captain Guy commanded one of the companies landed for the purpose of destroying the town of Bandaris, and having acquitted himself in this service with a considerable degree of credit, he was immediately afterwards promoted to command the Portsmouth of forty-four guns. In 1670 he was made commander of the Henrietta yacht; and, at the commencement of the Dutch war, was removed into the Portland: in a very short time he returned to his old ship the Henrietta. In 1673 he was promoted to command the St. Michael; but soon went back, for the third time, to the Henrietta. This was the only vessel lost by the English in the action between prince Rupert and the Dutch, in the month of August following, though by the Dutch accounts she is converted into a large man of war of seventy guns. On the 15th of April 1674 he was made commander of the Portsmouth yacht by king Charles. After this he did not serve.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Edward Grove

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GROVE, Edward,—commanded the Merlin in 1661, the Martin in 1663, and the Success in 1664.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. John Golding

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GOLDING, John,—was appointed to the command of the Katherine yacht in 1661, and to the Mary yacht in the same year. In 1664 he was removed into the Diamond frigate. He had the melancholy honour of being the first commander who fell, after the declaration of war against Holland, being killed in the month of February, 1665, in an engagement with a Dutch frigate, which is, by Kennet, called a Direction ship, of thirty-two guns, commanded by young Evertzen, son to the admiral. The enemy's ship was captured: a poor, and very inadequate compensation for the loss of so gallant a man!
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. John Fletcher

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FLATCHER, John,—was appointed captain of the Eagle in 1660, and in 1667 of the Little Gift. A circumstance which, under the present regulations of the navy would appear extraordinary, occurs in the Memoirs of this gentleman. After having served as commander of the Eagle and Little Gift; in the year 1669 he served as lieutenant of the Foresight of forty-eight guns; and in the year 1672 was again appointed a commander, as captain of the French Victory. In the naval list is the following note against his name, "Lost his ship and flew from trial." But no intelligence can be collected from history, when, or in what manner, the ship was lost.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. William Fazeby

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FASEBY, William.—We are now come to one of those officers to whom Fortune, through a long, and tedious service of near forty years continuance, has denied that opportunity of delivering a name to posterity, decorated with those splendid achievements, which others, their cotemporaries, more fortunate, but, perhaps, not more gallant, have acquired, with so much happiness to themselves, and glory to their country. In the year 1661 he commanded the Roe ketch; in 1666, till which time his name does not again occur, he commanded the Katherine yacht, and in the same year the Anne yacht: in 1668 he commanded the Monmouth yacht; and, in 1671, the Cleveland yacht. On the 11 th of September, 1675, he was appointed, by commission from the king, to command the Charles yacht; and, on the 26th of September, 1679, he was appointed, by the commissioners for executing the office of lord high admiral, to the command of the Kent. On the 10th of December following he was removed into the Henrietta yacht. How long he continued to command her is not known; but we find him re-commissioned for the same vessel, on the 14th of November, 1685; and again, by king James the Second, on the 1st of May, 1688. On the 4th of May, being only three days afterwards, in the same year, he was removed into the Mary. We hear nothing more of him, either as to any command he held, or the part he bore in the revolution, till the 24th of January, 1690, when he was appointed to the command of the Eagle guardship; from which he retired some time afterwards. After this period he never went to sea. Sunk by age and infirmity, he was, when he quitted the Eagle, put on the superannuated list. And though Fortune, as has been already remarked, denied him the opportunity of leaving behind him a brilliant name, she had it not in her power to deprive him of that degree of merit which depended on himself: a character without reproach. He died on the 11th of September, 1711.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Robert Clarke

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CLARK, Robert,—after having severally commanded the Mary of fifty eight guns, to which he was appointed in the year 1660, as well as the St. George of sixty six, and the Royal Charles of eighty-two guns, in the following year, in 1663, was removed into the Antelope of fifty. [...] In the year 1665 he again commanded the St. George, which he quitted soon afterwards for a smaller ship, the Gloucester, a third rate of fifty-eight guns. In the following year he was dispatched, as commodore of a small squadron, to lay off the mouth of the Texel in order to watch the motions of the Dutch fleet. He arrived on this station the 14th of May, and the following day captured seven (out of twelve sail which were in company) ships of 400 tons each from the Baltic, bound to Amsterdam; the loss of which must have distressed the enemy in the most eminent degree. The approach of the enemy's fleet obliged him to quit his station a few days afterwards. Having effected a junction with the duke of Albemarle at the Gunfleet on the 24th of May, he bore as distinguished a part in the action, which commenced on the 1st of June, as the size of the ship he commanded, she being only a fourth rate, would allow. The Gloucester being totally disabled in the action, captain Clark, in testimony no doubt of the high sense they entertained of his services, was promoted by the joint commanders in chief, to the command of the Triumph, a second rate. Holding this station, he again eminently signalized himself in the ever-memorable action with the Dutch, on the twenty-fifth of July. In the year 1667 he was removed by the duke of York, first into the Monmouth, and afterwards into the Mary; which last ship he was re-appointed to in the year 1669. The time and place of his death is not known.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Thomas Bun

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BUNN, Thomas,—was appointed captain of the Essex in the year 1660, by the duke of York; and the following year was promoted to the command of the Lyon, a third rate of fifty eight guns. He, in all probability, died soon afterwards, as it does not appear he was ever appointed to any other ship.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. William Berkeley

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Nothing can be more honourable than the testimony of his valour given by the Dutch themselves. Lediard has the following note extracted from the Life of Van Tromp, which, as it contains a most particular account of the manner of sir William's death, its reinsertion here will, probably, not be thought an improper or impertinent act of plagiarism.

"Highly to be admired was the resolution of vice-admiral Berkeley, who, though cut off from the line, surrounded by his enemies, great numbers of his men killed, his ship disabled and boarded on all sides, yet continued fighting, almost alone, killed several with his own hand, and would accept of no quarter, till, at length being shot in the throat with a musket ball, he retired into the captain's cabbin, where he was found dead, extended at his full length on a table, and almost covered with his own blood."
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. William Berkeley

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BERKELEY, Sir William,—was the noble, and very gallant descendant, of a most ancient and honourable family, lineally deduced from Robert Fitzharding, a personage of considerable eminence at the time of the conquest. Having betaken himself to the sea, he was appointed lieutenant of the Swiftsure in 1661 : in 1662 he was removed into the Assistance; and a very short time afterwards, during the same year, was promoted to command the Bonadventure. In 1663 he was appointed to the Bristol, and in the ensuing year to the Resolution. All this happening in the time of peace, there was, as yet, no opportunity for his natural gallantry to expand itself, as it afterwards did so much to the credit of the British name, and so heroically to the reputation, though, alas! so fatally to the life of this great and truly brave man. In 1665 he was appointed to command the Swiftsure; and, notwithstanding his youth, he being at that time not more than twenty-six years old, was promoted to be rear-admiral of the red squadron, under the duke of York. On the return of the fleet into port, after the defeat of the Dutch, he was advanced to be vice-admiral of the white under sir William Penn; but no second action took place during the remainder of the year. In 1666, when the fleet was put under the command of prince Rupert and the duke of Albemarle, sir William went to sea as vice-admiral of the blue, and led the van of the fleet with his squadron. The separation of the white, under prince Rupert, from the blue and red squadrons, which remained with the duke of Albemarle, and the bloody and desperate conflict which took place in consequence of that fatal, though perhaps necessary and unavoidable plan of operations, is well known. Towards the conclusion of the first day's action sir William's ship, the Swiftsure, a second rate, being, with two others, cut off from our line, was, after being completely disabled, unfortunately taken. To aggravate the misfortune, as if the national distress would otherwise have been incomplete, and which was, indeed, a greater loss than that of the ship which he commanded : here fell the brave sir William Berkeley. Adorned with every quality necessary to constitute an hero, he lived only to make known his rising virtues to the world, leaving it to mourn their absence, without even knowing their full extent. Every possible respect was paid to his memory by the Dutch, his body being embalmed and deposited in the chapel of the great church at the Hague, by order of the states. A special messenger was sent to England, to king Charles, requesting he would give the necessary orders for the disposal of it; a civility they professed to owe to his corpse, in respect of the quality of his person, the greatness of his command, and the high courage and valour he displayed in that action, in which he, as has been already related, unfortunately fell.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. George Batts

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BATTS, or BATES, George,—was appointed commander of the Great Gift, in the year 1660, by the duke of York. In the year 1661 he was removed into the Little Gift. In 1663 he became captain of the Francis. In the following year he was promoted to the Hampshire, of forty guns. In the two actions fought between the English and Dutch fleets in 1666, he commanded the Unicorn, a third rate of sixty guns, by commission from prince Rupert, and the duke of Albemarle, who, at that time, executed the office of commander in chief jointly.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Ball

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BALL, Napthali,—was made commander of the Bramble fireship in the year 1665, and towards the latter end of the same year was removed into the Success, a fireship also. On the 9th of December he fell in with two Dutch privateers off the Dogger Bank, and after a very smart action, in which nine of the Dutchmen were killed, captured one of them, the other made her escape during the contest. He was afterwards tolerably successful in distressing the enemy's commerce, particularly in capturing a valuable prize, belonging to Amsterdam, in the month of January. The next information we meet with concerning him is, that he commanded the Roe ketch and Assurance in succession, during the year 1667. In 1672 he was made commander of the Richmond and soon afterwards, in the course of the same year, of the Greenwich.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Ball

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BALL, Andrew,—was, in 1666, made commander, first of the Happy Entrance fireship, and afterwards of the Aleppine fireship. In 1668 he was removed into the Orange Tree fireship, and sailing soon afterwards to the Streights, under the command of sir Thomas Allen, was unfortunately drowned.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Philemon Bacon

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BACON, Philemon,—after having served as lieutenant of several ships of war, (the Assistance in 1661, the Bonadventure in 1662, the St. Andrew in 1663, and the Plymouth in 1664) was, in 1664, appointed to command the Nonsuch. In the following year he was successively and rapidly captain of the Oxford, the Assurance, and the Bristol: the last of these ships he commanded in the first action between the duke of Albemarle and the Dutch in the year 1666. Being one of the look-out ships from the fleet, as he was the first who discovered the enemy, so was he also among the first who fell in the ensuing action, lamented by his friends and applauded by his enemies, as a man who would undoubtedly have left behind him more numerous proofs of his gallantry, had not fate deprived him of the opportunity.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Thomas Ewens

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EWENS, Thomas, — commanded the Kent in 1664
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. Philip Evett

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EVATT, Philip,—after having commanded the Castle frigate in 1665, in the following year served as lieutenant of the Lyon, and afterwards of the Royal James.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

About Capt. George Erwin

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ERWIN, George,—commanded the William in 1664.
---Biographia Navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.