Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
He had also dreamed of a brilliant wedding in Holland, of a large reception at Harrisville, and had even heard the plaudits of his fellow artists in New York, as they lauded his master piece "Admiral De Ruyter's Great Naval Victory." Fortified with these proofs of Christine's devotion, he sought the company of his blond sweetheart on a balcony that overlooked the moon-lit harbor of Amsterdam.
By the time we had done that it was quite dark, and we missed them altogether and sailed south, thinking Van Tromp had gone that way; but, instead, he had sailed north, and in the morning we found he had picked up De Ruyter's fleet, and was ready to fight.
It is not creditable to the gunnery of the day that more substantial results did not follow; but it is to be remembered that all Ruyter's skill could secure, except for probably a very short time, was an action on equal terms with the English; his total inferiority in numbers could not be quite overcome.
To prevent damage the active Hottentot sprang forward. In doing so he tripped and fell. At the same instant a tremendous crack of the whip and a shout produced a wrench at the waggon, the hind wheel of which went over Ruyter's head and crushed it into the ground! A roar of consternation followed, and several eager hands carefully dug out the poor man's head.
The account about to be given is mainly taken from a recent number of the "Revue Maritime et Coloniale," and is there published as a letter, recently discovered, from a Dutch gentleman serving as volunteer on board De Ruyter's ship, to a friend in France.
"In the midst of a terrible cannonade," that is, after part of his ships were engaged, "Duquesne, commanding the centre, took post on the beam of Ruyter's division." "Langeron and Bethune, commanding leading ships of the French centre, are crushed by superior forces." How can this be, seeing the French had the more ships?
Unfortunately the new spirit that was coming into the navy of the Restoration was evidenced by the fact that a number of English captains, finding the action too hot for them, deserted their commander in chief. On the Dutch side de Ruyter's handling of his fleet was complicated by the conduct of Cornelius Tromp.
If we accept the English estimate of the forces, which gives the English sixty ships, the French thirty, and the Dutch seventy, Ruyter's plan of attack, by simply holding the French in check as at Solebay, allowed him to engage the English on equal terms. The battle took on several distinct phases, which it is instructive to follow.
Most of the robbers around him had like himself fled from harsh masters, and become hardened in a career of crime. The expression of almost every countenance was vindictive, sensual, coarse. Ruyter's was not so. Unyielding sternness alone marked his features, which, we have elsewhere remarked, were unusually good for a Hottentot.
His master, Martin Tromp, is regarded as the father of the line ahead formation for battle, but he undoubtedly taught de Ruyter its limitations as well as its advantages, and there is no trace of the stupid formalism of the Duke of York's regulations in de Ruyter's brilliant work. At this time he had no worthy opponent.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking