of defeat. He probably suspected,--for he was of a
captious and jealous temper,--that the instructions which placed him in
so painful a dilemma had been framed by enemies and rivals with a
design unfriendly to his fortune and his fame. He was exasperated by the
thought that he was ordered about and overruled by Russell, who, though
his inferior in professional rank, exercised, as one of the Council of
Nine, a supreme control over all the departments of the public service.
There seems to be no ground for charging Torrington with disaffection.
Still less can it be suspected that an officer, whose whole life had
been passed in confronting danger, and who had always borne himself
bravely, wanted the personal courage which hundreds of sailors on board
of every ship under his command possessed. But there is a higher
courage of which Torrington was wholly destitute. He shrank from all
responsibility, from the responsibility of fighting, and from the
responsibility of not fighting; and he succeeded in finding out a middle
way which united all the inconveniences which he wished to avoid. He
would conform to the letter of his instructions; yet he would not put
every thing to hazard. Some of his ships should skirmish with the enemy;
but the great body of his fleet should not be risked. It was evident
that the vessels which engaged the French would be placed in a most
dangerous situation, and would suffer much loss; and there is but too
good reason to believe that Torrington was base enough to lay his plans
in such a manner that the danger and loss might fall almost exclusively
to the share of the Dutch. He bore them no love; and in England they
were so unpopular that the destruction of their whole squadron was
likely to cause fewer murmurs than the capture of one of our own
frigates.

It was on the twenty-ninth of June that the Admiral received the order
to fight. The next day, at four in the morning, he bore down on the
French fleet, and formed his vessels in order of battle. He had not
sixty sail of the line, and the French had at least eighty; but his
ships were more strongly manned than those of the enemy. He placed the
Dutch in the van and gave them the signal to engage. That signal was
promptly obeyed. Evertsen and his countrymen fought with a courage to
which both their English allies and their French enemies, in spite of
national prejudices, did full justice. In none of Van Tromp's or De
Ruyter's battles had the honour of