h flag. A few days later[b]
the celebrated Van Tromp appeared with two-and-forty sail in the Downs. He
had been instructed to keep at a proper distance from the English coast,
neither to provoke nor to shun hostility, and to salute or not according to
his own discretion; but on no account to yield to the newly-claimed right
of search.[1] To Bourne, the English, commander, he apologized for
his arrival, which, he said, was not with any hostile design, but in
consequence of the loss of several anchors and cables on the opposite
coast. The next day[c] he met Blake off the harbour of Dover; an action
took place between the rival commanders; and, when the fleets separated in
the evening, the English cut off two ships of thirty guns, one of which
they took, the other they abandoned, on account of the damage which it had
received.

It was a question of some importance who was the aggressor. By Blake it was
asserted that Van Tromp had gratuitously come to insult the English fleet
in its own roads, and had provoked the engagement by firing the first
broadside. The Dutchman replied that

[Footnote 1: Le Clerc, i. 315. The Dutch seem to have argued that the
salute had formerly been rendered to the king, not to the nation.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. May 12.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. May 18.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. May 19.]

he was cruising for the protection of trade; that the weather had driven
him on the English coast; that he had no thought of fighting till he
received the fire of Blake's ship; and that, during the action, he had
carefully kept on the defensive, though he might with his great superiority
of force have annihilated the assailants.[1]

The reader will probably think, that those who submitted to solicit the
continuance of peace were not the first to seek the commencement of
hostilities. Immediately after the action at sea, the council ordered the
English commanders to pursue, attack, and destroy all vessels the property
of the United Provinces; and, in the course of a month, more than seventy
sail of merchantmen, besides several men-of-war, were captured, stranded,
or burnt. The Dutch, on the contrary, abstained from reprisals; their
ambassadors thrice assured the council that the battle had happened without
the knowledge, and to the deep regret of the States;[a] and on each
occasion earnestly deprecated the adoption of hasty and violent measures,
which might lead to consequences highly prejudicial to both natio