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The whole face of affairs was changed; and Louis was obliged to abandon all his conquests with more rapidity than he had made them. Two desperate battles at sea, on the 28th of May and the 4th of June, in which De Ruyter and Prince Rupert again distinguished themselves, only proved the valor of the combatants, leaving victory still doubtful.
The Lord who gave them has taken them away, and can give them back again if He has a mind to; but tell me, Ruyter, why will you not think of the things we once spoke of that time when you were so roughly handled by Jan Smit about your soul and the Saviour?" "How you knows I not tink?" demanded the Hottentot sharply. "Because any man can know a tree by its fruit," returned Orpin.
This checked her in her course, but on looking round, and missing her comrade, and observing Ruyter slowly advancing, she was still more exasperated, and fancying that she was near being surrounded, she made another forward movement, growling terribly.
"But before I close these despatches, which are to go tomorrow by the 'Ruyter' in which vessel I have also engaged a passage for Mahal the Smuggler, in the event of the success of my plans I must include in parentheses a subject of some importance.
Ruyter, Booby, and Jemalee turned towards Hans Marais with a shrinking action, as if they expected to feel the sjambok on their shoulders, for their own cruel master was wont on occasions of mischance such as this to visit his men with summary punishment; but Hans was a good specimen of another, and, we believe, much more numerous class of Cape-Dutchmen.
But when he learnt that these rejoicings were in honor of a great victory obtained by the combined English and French fleets over the brave De Ruyter and the younger Van Tromp, it went so much to his heart that he took to his bed, and in less than three days was brought to death's door by a violent cholera morbus!
Holland, the bulwark of Protestantism abroad, seemed to crumble into ruin at the first blow of France. Lewis passed the Rhine on the twelfth of June, and overran three of the States without opposition. It was only by skill and desperate courage that the Dutch ships under De Ruyter held the English fleet under the Duke of York at bay in an obstinate battle off the coast of Suffolk.
To-morrow I will add a few lines to this long statement, which the steamship 'Ruyter' will convey to Europe." Having locked up his papers, Joshua rang the bell loudly, and, to the great astonishment of his servants, not accustomed to see him leave home in the middle of the night, went in all haste to the residence of the governor of the island. We now conduct the reader to the ruins of Tchandi.
Here, by an unexpected movement, he applied a match to a train of powder, which he had previously laid along the floor of the apartment. The explosion was instantaneous. The tower, where the contest was taking place, sprang into the air, and De Ruyter with his enemies shared a common doom.
In 1651 the English Navigation Act, requiring all goods from abroad to be brought in, either in English ships, or in ships of the countries on the Continent in which the imported wares were produced, struck a heavy blow at Dutch commerce. War followed, in which the great Dutch admirals, Van Tromp, De Ruyter, De Witt, found more than a match in the English commander, Blake.
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