h is always slow in
getting to the light.... This transformation was not sudden, not
only because the new material required time to be built and
armed, but above all, it is sad to say, because the necessary
consequences of the new motive power escaped most minds."[24]

We come now to the justly celebrated Four Days' Battle of June, 1666,
which claims special notice, not only on account of the great number
of ships engaged on either side, nor yet only for the extraordinary
physical endurance of the men who kept up a hot naval action for so
many successive days, but also because the commanders-in-chief on
either side, Monk and De Ruyter, were the most distinguished seamen,
or rather sea-commanders, brought forth by their respective countries
in the seventeenth century. Monk was possibly inferior to Blake in the
annals of the English navy; but there is a general agreement that De
Ruyter is the foremost figure, not only in the Dutch service, but
among all the naval officers of that age. The account about to be
given is mainly taken from a recent number of the "Revue Maritime et
Coloniale,"[25] and is there published as a letter, recently
discovered, from a Dutch gentleman serving as volunteer on board De
Ruyter's ship, to a friend in France. The narrative is delightfully
clear and probable,--qualities not generally found in the description
of those long-ago fights; and the satisfaction it gave was increased
by finding in the Memoirs of the Count de Guiche, who also served as
volunteer in the fleet, and was taken to De Ruyter after his own
vessel had been destroyed by a fire-ship, an account confirming the
former in its principal details.[26] This additional pleasure was
unhappily marred by recognizing certain phrases as common to both
stories; and a comparison showed that the two could not be accepted as
independent narratives. There are, however, points of internal
difference which make it possible that the two accounts are by
different eye-witnesses, who compared and corrected their versions
before sending them out to their friends or writing them in their
journals.

The numbers of the two fleets were: English about eighty ships, the
Dutch about one hundred; but the inequality in numbers was largely
compensated by the greater size of many of the English. A great
strategic blunder by the government in London immediately preceded the
fight. The king was informed that a French squadron was on its way
from