ad all sail to a fair wind, and led by the "Royal Charles" with
Monk and Rupert on her quarter-deck, the long procession of heavy
battleships worked out into King's Channel, soon helped by a racing ebb.
Those who saw the sight said that no finer spectacle had ever been
witnessed on the seas, and certainly England had never till then challenged
battle with a more powerful fleet. Officers and men were in high spirits
and confident of victory, Rupert as eager as when in his younger days he
led his wild charges of cavaliers, Monk impatient with prudent counsels
urged by timid pilots, and using sharp, strong language to encourage them
to take risks which he as a landsman did not appreciate. Not a ship touched
ground. Some Dutch ships were sighted on the look-out off the edge of the
Gunfleet, but they drew off when Captain Elliot, in the "Revenge," led a
squadron of nine ships-of-the-line and some fireships to attack them. De
Ruyter, who had been waiting with his main fleet off the Naze, stood out to
sea, having no intention of beginning a battle till there were long hours
of daylight before him. As the sun went down the English fleet anchored in
the seaward opening of the King's Channel, with the "Royal Charles" near
the buoy that marked the outer end of the Gunfleet Sands, and on both
sides men turned in with the expectation of hard fighting next morning.

At daybreak the English fleet weighed anchor. The Dutch fleet was seen some
miles to seaward and more to the south, sailing in three divisions in line
ahead. Evertszoon was in command of the van; De Ruyter of the centre; Van
Tromp of the rear. There were more than a hundred sail. Monk stood towards
them before a light breeze, challenging battle in the fashion of the time
with much sounding of trumpets and beating of drums. But De Ruyter kept his
distance, working to the southward outside the tangle of shallows in the
Thames estuary. All day the fleets drifted slowly, keeping out of gunshot
range. Towards evening the wind fell to a sullen calm with a cloudy sky,
and Monk and De Ruyter both anchored outside the Long Sand. After sunset
there came a summer storm, vivid flashes of lightning, heavy thunder-peals,
and wild, tempestuous gusts of wind. The anchors held, but Monk lost one of
his best ships, the "Jersey." She was struck by lightning, which brought
down a mass of spars and rigging on her decks, and so crippled her that she
had to leave the fleet at dawn.

The Dutch fl