A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



very weak affair. The Dutch official return of their loss was seven killed and thirty-five wounded; 1 

 on the English side only one man was killed in the fort and two were wounded, including the governor, 

 Darell. By the time the Dutch had retreated to Felixstowe the tide was out, and they could not 

 get their boats off until 2 a.m. of 3 July ; a desultory combat was kept up with the militia, who, 

 however, were not able to hinder the re-embarkation. Ill-luck still followed the Dutch, for when 

 they sailed three of their ships went aground on the Whiting shoal, but in revenge they were able to 

 affright Aldcburgh again, for on 1 1 July six vessels appeared off the town, and, as the earl of Suffolk 

 had dismissed the militia, the people were ' much depressed.' A varying number of Dutch ships 

 was at anchor off Aldeburgh for five or six weeks. 2 In view of the absolute beggary of the 

 military departments it is rather surprising to find that Landguard was so well equipped for defence 

 as events showed it to have been. The credit of the government was so bad after this war that 

 the captain of a cruiser calling at Aldeburgh in 1668 was obliged to leave six barrels of powder 

 with the bailiffs as security for the provisions supplied to him. 



The third Dutch war was not fought like the preceding ones. It was unpopular in itself, 

 and rendered more so by our alliance with France, recognized by national instinct as the true 

 enemy. The distrust and dislike of the French were intensified by the character of their assistance, 

 and after the first battle which they and we were supposed to have fought side by side the popular 

 London street phrase addressed to a hesitating comb.itant was : ' Do you fight like the French ? ' 

 There could hardly have been much fear of invasion, or even of a raid, but beacons ready to be 

 fired were established between Easton and Landguard. 3 Notwithstanding this precaution Landguard 

 was allowed to remain in a dilapidated state. A new governor, Sir Charles Lyttelton, came in 

 April, 1672, and found the place 'in the most miserable condition of any fort in Europe.' 4 

 Lyttelton, who seems to have been unable to recognize the difference between the maritime 

 conditions of 1667 and 1672, feared an attack ; in May he wrote that he had only sixty men, and 

 that the fort was under-gunned, 'Unless, as I was once told, we have too many already to lose.' 4 

 Just a year later Captain Edward Talbot, who then took the command, wrote to the Master- 

 General of the Ordnance that the drawbridge had fallen in, and that, altogether, he had never seen 

 such a state of ruin. 6 In May, 1672, the duke of York was lying eight or nine miles out in 

 Southwold Bay, Aldeburgh and Southwold being the watering-places for the fleet. On the 28th 

 the battle of 'Solebay' was fought, within sight of Aldeburgh, and volumes of smoke from the 

 war-ships were driven along the coast as far as Essex. 7 



As war with France was considered imminent in 1677, Parliament granted an especial sum 

 for the construction of thirty large men-of-war. All were built in the government yards except 

 four given out to contract with Sir Henry Johnson, of the Aldeburgh family, and launched from 

 his Blackwall yard. Again, in 169 1, Parliament gave money to build twenty-seven ships, and a 

 list of the private yards at that date able to construct vessels of sixty guns and upward shows that 

 there was none in Suffolk. The Revolution of 1688 did not affect the county from a maritime 

 point of view, and the subsequent wars only brought those annoyances to which all the coast 

 counties were exposed. Suffolk produced some seamen during the second half of the seventeenth 

 century who did good service in the Navy. Admiral Sir Thomas Allin, who commanded the van 

 in the battle of 25 July, 1665, and who was twice commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, 

 Rear-Admiral Richard Utber, and his two sons, Captains Robert and John Utber, Admirals Sir 

 John Ash by and Sir Andrew Leake, who were both leading seamen in their generation, and 

 Vice-Admiral James Mighells, were all Lowestoft men. A humbler hero was Robert Cason, the 

 master of an English merchantman, who, in 1690, was awarded a medal and chain of the value of 

 j£6o in recognition of his splendid defence of his ship against French privateers. From 1688 until 

 1697 Admiral Henry Killigrew was governor of Landguard, being the only sailor-governor it ever 

 had. It was a titular but salaried post, and the officer in real authority was the lieutenant- 

 governor ; Francis Hamon had been given that appointment by James II to put an end to the 

 embezzlement of stores that went on, from which we may infer that the garrison did not neglect 

 the opportunities offered by their isolated situation. 8 In 1692 the armament of Landguard was sixty- 

 two guns, and in 1709 it was intended to rebuild it to correspond with new fortifications designed 

 at Harwich. 9 In the interval the most distinguished littirateur the British Army has ever possessed, 

 Captain Richard Steele, commanded a company of foot in the garrison between 1702 and 1704, and 

 shortly after his arrival wrote representing that the barrack rooms were in such bad repair as to 

 be open to the weather. 10 Steele, himself, lived at a farmhouse at Walton. 



1 Brandt, op. cit. 425. ' S.P. Dom. Chas. II, ccix, 49 ; ccx, 102 ; ccxiii, 10 Aug. 



1 Ibid, cccxiii, 34 ; cccxxiii, 144. ' Ibid, cccvi, 31, III. 



5 Ibid, cccxiii, 174. There was but one trained gunner, with one arm, belonging to the garrison. 



'Leslie, Hist, of Landguard, 55. 'S.P. Dom. Chas. II, cccx, 16. 



"Ibid. Will, and Mary, 8 July, 1692. 'Treas. Papers, cxii, 39. 



"Aitken, life of Rub. Steele, i', 81. 



2 3 + 



