cal regulations of the privy council, and the sanguinary administration of that heartless ruffian, Lauderdale, soon drove them once more into open insurrection.

The successful conclusion of Sir William Temple's mission to the Hague in 1668, for the purpose of negotiating an alliance against France, was one of the few public measures of this reign which deserve approbation; but whatever merit was due to the king himself, in this transaction, was more than neutralised by the secret treaty which he entered into with France in less than two years thereafter, for the purpose of changing "the religion and subverting the constitution of England." Of this treaty little was certainly known at the time. All the parties concerned observed an impenetrable secrecy respecting it. It is now known that the principal articles were-1st. That the king of England should publicly profess himself a catholic, at such time as should appear to him most expedient, and, subsequently to that profession, should join with Louis in a war against the Dutch republic; and 2dly. That, to enable the king of England to suppress any insurrection which might be occasioned by the avowal of his conversion, the king of France should grant him an aid of £2,000,000 of livres, besides assisting him with an armed force. It is uncertain when Charles II. first thought of becoming a catholic. But it is a fact that in the beginning of the year 1659, the duke of Ormond accidentally detected him on his knees at mass, in a church at Brussels. He imparted the secret to Clarendon and Southampton, who judged it prudent to conceal the truth. Accordingly, the act for the better security of his majesty's person and government' provided that to affirm the king to be a papist should be punishable by disability to hold any office in the state, civil, military, or ecclesiastical.

Nothing could be more disgraceful than Charles's utter abandonment of every principle of honour, and justice, and morality, from the time that he threw himself into the hands of the five unprincipled ministers, Arlington, Clifford, Buckingham, Lauderdale and Ashley, collectively called the Cabal. In 1677, however, he performed a po. pular act by marrying his niece, the princess Mary, to the prince of Orange.

The next year was distinguished by the pretended discovery of the popish plot, founded upon the monstrous fictions of Titus Oates and Bedloe. The fears of the country were now so effectually excited, that the duke of York found it prudent to retire to Brussels, and Charles was obliged to grant his consent to that great palladium of civil liberty, the habeas corpus bill. At last, the king came to an open rupture with his parliament, and finding that he could not bend it to his own purposes, he resolved to govern without it. Already had the blood of Russell and of Sidney flowed upon the scaffold, and new and still fiercer measures were preparing for extinguishing the last spark of h berty, and converting the government of England into an absolute monarchy, when the hand of death arrested the profligate monarch in the midst of his licentious and unprincipled career. He expired in February, 1685, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

The character of Charles II. has been thus drawn by Mr Fox :"From the facts which have been stated," he observes, 66 we may col. lect, that his ambition was directed solely against his subjects, while

he was completely indifferent concerning the figure which he or they might make in the general affairs of Europe; and that his desire of power was more unmixed with the love of glory than that of any other man whom history has recorded; that he was unprincipled, ungrateful, mean and treacherous; to which may be added, vindictive and remorseless. For Burnet, in refusing to him the praise of clemency and forgiveness, seems to be perfectly justifiable; nor is it conceivable upon what pretence his partizans have taken this ground of panegyric. I doubt whether a single instance can be produced, of his having spared the life of any one, whom motives either of policy, or of revenge, prompted him to destroy.

"On the other hand, it would be want of candour to maintain, that Charles was entirely destitute of good qualities; nor was the propriety of Burnet's comparison between him and Tiberius ever felt, I imagine, by any one but its author. He was gay and affable; and, if incapable of the sentiments belonging to pride of a laudable sort, he was at least free from haughtiness and insolence. The praise of politeness-which the Stoics are not perhaps wrong in classing among the moral virtues, provided they admit it to be one of the lowest order has never been denied him; and he had in an eminent degree that facility of temper which, though considered by some moralists as nearly allied to vice, yet, inasmuch as it contributes greatly to the happiness of those around us, is, in itself, not only an engaging, but an estimable quality. His support of the queen during the heats raised by the Popish plot, ought to be taken rather as a proof that he was not a monster, than to be ascribed to him as a merit; but his steadiness to his brother, though it may and ought, in a great measure, to be accounted for upon selfish principles, had at least a strong resemblance to virtue.

"The best part of this prince's character seems to have been his kindness towards his mistresses, and his affection for his children, and others nearly connected to him by the ties of blood. His recommendation of the dutchess of Portsmouth and Mrs Gwyn upon his deathbed, to his successor, is much to his honour; and they who censure it, seem, in their zeal to show themselves strict moralists, to have suffered their notions of vice and virtue to have fallen into strange confusion. Charles's connexion with those ladies might be vicious; but, at a moment when that connexion was upon the point of being finally and irrevocably dissolved, to concern himself about their future welfare, and to recommend them to his brother with earnest tenderness, was virtue. It is not for the interest of morality that the good and evil actions, even of bad men, should be confounded. His affection for the duke of Gloucester, and for the dutchess of Orleans, seems to have been sincere and cordial. To attribute, as some have done, his grief for the loss of the first to political considerations, founded upon an intended balance of power between his two brothers, would be an absurd refinement, whatever were his general disposition; but when we reflect upon that carelessness which, especially in his youth, was a conspicuous feature of his character, the absurdity becomes still more striking And though Burnet more covertly, and Ludlow more openly, insinuate that his fondness for his sister was of a criminal nature, I never could find that there was any ground whatever for such a suspicion; nor does the little that remains of their epistolary correspondence give it the smallest

countenance. Upon the whole, Charles the Second was a bad man, and a bad king: let us not palliate his crimes; but neither let us adopt false or doubtful imputations, for the purpose of making him a monster."

Sir George Ayscough.

DIED CIR. A. D. 1673.

THE maritime annals of Great Britain, during the reign of the second Charles, present many illustrious names, among which that of Sir George Ayscough holds a distinguished place. Sir George was descended of an ancient Lincolnshire family. On the breaking out of the civil wars, he adhered to the parliament; and when seventeen ships went over to the prince of Wales in 1648, Sir George brought his ship, the Lion, into the Thames. This conduct procured for him the confidence of the parliament, who immediately sent him over to the Dutch coast to observe the motions of his late associates. In 1649, he was constituted admiral of the Irish seas; and in 1651 he was sent to reduce the Scilly islands, then held by Sir John Grenville for Charles II. In this latter year he sailed for Barbadoes, where he summoned Lord Willoughby to submit to the authority of the parliament of England, and finally compelled that nobleman to acquiesce in the conditions offered to him.

In Lilly's almanack for 1653, we find the following observations under the head of August 16, 1652:-" Sir George Ayscue, near Plymouth, with 14 or 15 ships only, fought 60 sail of Dutch men-ofwar; had thirty shot in the hull of his own ship. Twenty merchantmen never came in to assist him, yet he made the Dutch give way. Why our state shall pay those ships that fought not, we of the people know not. This is he that is a gentleman, lives like a gentleman, and acts the part of a generous commander in all his actions." The issue of this action, as well as the strength of the opposing fleets, is variously related by different historians. In the life of De Ruyter, it is affirmed that his squadron consisted of 50 men-of-war; and that advice of their arrival off the isle of Wight having been received by the English parliament, Sir George, who then commanded a fleet of 40 men-of-war in the west, was ordered to stretch over the channel to hinder, or at least dispute the passage of the Dutch fleet; that the two fleets came to close quarters about four in the afternoon, and that the fight was obstinately maintained on both sides until nightfall. Whitlocke says the Dutch fleet consisted of 80 sail; that the action lasted three days; that Sir George Ayscough's squadron consisted of 38 ships of war, and four fire-ships, and that the Dutch admiral was sunk. Ledyard, who probably had access to good private information, says Sir George broke the enemy's line, and weathered them; but that, after this advantage, not being duly supported by the other ships, he retired to Plymouth during the night.

The parliament acknowledged Sir George's merits by granting him an estate of £300 per annum in Ireland, with the present of a sum of money; but not wholly approving of his conduct at Barbadoes, they dismissed him from service. Sir George bore his disappointment with

great equanimity. He retired into the country to a house in Surrey, which Whitlocke describes as so environed with ponds, moats, and water, that it resembled a ship at sea. Here he declared he meant to cast anchor for the rest of his life, but Cromwell prevailed on him to undertake the command of the fleet of Charles Gustavus of Sweden, then threatened by the Danes and Dutch. Sir George was received with great respect by the Swedes, and remained in this service till the death of Gustavus in 1663.

Returning home, soon after the Restoration, he was appointed one of the commissioners of the navy, and on the breaking out of the Dutch war in 1664, he went to sea as rear-admiral of the blue squadron, in which capacity he greatly distinguished himself in the engagement of the 3d of June, 1665. Next year Sir George hoisted his flag on board the Royal Prince, a ship of 100 guns, and was present at the great engagement which began on the 1st of June, between the Dutch fleet and the English. Towards the evening of the third day of that desperate fight, the Royal Prince unfortunately ran upon the sand-bank called the Galloper, and could not be got off. Sir George defended his vessel, with great resolution, until his men compelled him to surrender. The Dutch paid a high compliment to his bravery and worth in the extraordinary parade with which they exhibited their captive in different towns. He was closely imprisoned in the castle of Louvestein, but obtained his release soon after, and returned to his native country, where he spent the remainder of his days in comparative retirement. The date of his death is not certainly known. It appears that he was employed in 1668, and that he hoisted his flag on board the Triumph in 1671.

Sir Edward Spragge.

DIED A. D. 1673.

ANOTHER name which graces the maritime annals of Charles the Second's reign is that of Sir Edward Spragge, who first appears as captain of the Portland in the year 1661. At the commencement of the Dutch war, in 1665, he was appointed to the Royal James, but was in a short time removed to the Triumph. In the great engagement betwixt the duke of York and Opdam, Spragge behaved with distinguished bravery. His services on this occasion were rewarded with the honour of knighthood. In the ensuing spring he was appointed to the Dreadnought, and served as rear admiral of the white. On the death of Sir William Berkeley, Spragge was named vice-admiral of the blue. In the action with the Dutch of the 24th July, 1666, the blue squadron, which was the weakest in the English fleet, found itself opposed to that of Van Tromp, which was the strongest division of the enemy's fleet. Notwithstanding of the odds in his favour, however, Van Tromp found himself so severely handled that, on the wind shifting, he availed himself of it to get out of the reach of his opponents.

Sir Edward commanded at Sheerness when that place was attacked by the Dutch in June 1667. The place itself was almost incapable of resistance; its whole defence consisted of a platform, on which were

mounted fifteen iron guns. Yet, with these insignificant means, he for a time successfully resisted the approach of the Dutch vessels, and finally made good his retreat to Gillingham. When Van Naes, the Dutch admiral, came up the river again, after his attempt upon Harwich, Sir Edward engaged him about the Hope, and with a considerably smaller force, succeeded in compelling him to retire into his own

seas.

In 1669, on the appointment of the constable of Castile to the governorship of the Spanish Netherlands, Sir Edward was sent over to compliment him upon that occasion, and to promote the success of some political measures. In this new capacity he acquitted himself to the satisfaction of his royal master. Soon after his return to England he sailed as vice-admiral of the fleet, under Sir Thomas Allen, destined to chastise the Algerines. Sir Thomas returned from the Straits in November, 1670, leaving Sir Edward commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. Towards the latter end of the ensuing April, having received intelligence of a number of Algerine corsairs laying in Bugia bay, Sir Edward determined on instantly attacking them. A first attempt failed, in consequence of an accident which happened to the fire-ship; and in the meantime the Algerines laboured incessantly to secure their vessels by a strong boom made of yards, topmasts, and cables, buoyed up by casks. On the 8th of May a fine easterly breeze having sprung up, Sir Edward bore into the bay, and came to anchor in four fathoms water, close under the castle, from which an incessant fire was kept up upon him for two hours. During this time the boats of the fleet were employed in cutting the boom, and clearing a passage for the fire-ship. When this service was effected, she was sent in, and the whole Algerine fleet, consisting of seven men-of-war, was destroyed. This important and daring exploit was achieved with the loss of only seventeen men killed, and forty-one wounded. It effectually crippled the power of the Algerines, and brought them to terms with the English government.

On the renewal of war with the Dutch in 1671, Sir Edward was appointed to serve in his old station of vice-admiral of the blue, and to him the duke of York confided the trust of equipping the fleet, and arranging every thing that was necessary for its future service. He was present at the battle of Solebay, and sunk one of the largest ships in the enemy's line.

On the death of the earl of Sandwich, Sir Edward succeeded him as admiral of the blue. Campbell says, with regard to this appointment, "When the duke of York, by the passing of the test act, was obliged to part with his command, and the court, to gratify the desires of the nation, lay under an absoiute necessity of making use of Prince Rupert, they took care to secure the fleet notwithstanding, by employing on board such officers only as they could best and he could least trust." We are not quite disposed to adduce this statement as evidence that Sir Edward possessed "every virtue that could render a commander great, or human nature respectable." On the contrary, we regard the fact of Sir Edward's appointment, in place of Sir Robert Holmes, whom the prince had specially recommended, as furnishing a very conclusive

Charnock, vol. i. 74.