t appears that the Dutch
commander, Opdam, who was not a seaman but a cavalry officer, had
very positive orders to fight; the discretion proper to a
commander-in-chief on the spot was not intrusted to him. To interfere
thus with the commander in the field or afloat is one of the most
common temptations to the government in the cabinet, and is generally
disastrous. Tourville, the greatest of Louis XIV.'s admirals, was
forced thus to risk the whole French navy against his own judgment;
and a century later a great French fleet escaped from the English
admiral Keith, through his obedience to imperative orders from his
immediate superior, who was sick in port.

In the Lowestoft fight the Dutch van gave way; and a little later one
of the junior admirals of the centre, Opdam's own squadron, being
killed, the crew was seized with a panic, took the command of the
ship from her officers, and carried her out of action. This movement
was followed by twelve or thirteen other ships, leaving a great gap in
the Dutch line. The occurrence shows, what has before been pointed
out, that the discipline of the Dutch fleet and the tone of the
officers were not high, despite the fine fighting qualities of the
nation, and although it is probably true that there were more good
seamen among the Dutch than among the English captains. The natural
steadfastness and heroism of the Hollanders could not wholly supply
that professional pride and sense of military honor which it is the
object of sound military institutions to encourage. Popular feeling in
the United States is pretty much at sea in this matter; there is with
it no intermediate step between personal courage with a gun in its
hand and entire military efficiency.

Opdam, seeing the battle going against him, seems to have yielded to a
feeling approaching despair. He sought to grapple the English
commander-in-chief, who on this day was the Duke of York, the king's
brother. He failed in this, and in the desperate struggle which
followed, his ship blew up. Shortly after, three, or as one account
says four, Dutch ships ran foul of one another, and this group was
burned by one fire-ship; three or four others singly met the same fate
a little later. The Dutch fleet was now in disorder, and retreated
under cover of the squadron of Van Tromp, son of the famous old
admiral who in the days of the Commonwealth sailed through the Channel
with a broom at his masthead.

Fire-ships are seen here to have