D.T.

In the summer of 1671 there occurred an incident that reminds us
considerably of the Dorothy Osborne of former days. The Triple Alliance
had lost some of its freshness, and was not so much in vogue as
heretofore. Charles II. had been coquetting with the French King, and at
length the Government, throwing off its mask, formally displaced Temple
from his post in Holland. "The critical position of affairs," says
Courtenay, "induced the Dutch to keep a fleet at sea, and the English
Government hoped to draw from that circumstance an occasion of quarrel.
A yacht was sent for Lady Temple; the captain had orders to sail through
the Dutch fleet if he should meet it, and to fire into the nearest ships
until they should either strike sail to the flag which he bore, or
return his shot so as to make a quarrel!

"He saw nothing of the Dutch Fleet in going over, but on his return he
fell in with it, and fired, without warning and ceremony, into the ships
that were next him.

"The Dutch admiral, Van Ghent, was puzzled; he seemed not to know, and
probably did not know, what the English captain meant; he therefore sent
a boat, thinking it possible that the yacht might be in distress; when
the captain told his orders, mentioning also that he had the
ambassadress on board. Van Ghent himself then came on board, with a
handsome compliment to Lady Temple, and, making his personal inquiries
of the captain, received the same answer as before. The Dutchman said he
had no orders upon the point, which he rightly believed to be still
unsettled, and could not believe that the fleet, commanded by an
admiral, was to strike to the King's pleasure-boat.

"When the Admiral returned to his ship, the captain also, 'perplexed
enough,' applied to Lady Temple, who soon saw that he desired to get out
of his difficulty by her help; but the wife of Sir William Temple called
forth the spirit of Dorothy Osborne. 'He knew,' she told the captain,
'his orders best, and what he was to do upon them, which she left to
him to follow as he thought fit, without any regard to her or her
children.' The Dutch and English commanders then proceeded each upon his
own course, and Lady Temple was safely landed in England."

There is an account of this incident in a letter of Sir Charles
Lyttelton to Viscount Hatton, in the Hatton Correspondence. He tells us
that the poor captain, Captain Crow of _The Monmouth_, "found himself in
the Tower about it;" but he does not