A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Sir George Ayscue's instructions of 2O July, 1652, directed him to seize all French ships except 

 fishing boats coming over to Kent and Sussex waters and such vessels as had licence to trade between 

 Rye and Dieppe. During August, 1652, Ruiter was several times off the Sussex coast, and on his 

 way down Channel was off Brighton where he drove several ships ashore. On land they fired the 

 beacons and prepared for a descent, 1 but Ruiter had more important objects in view than a useless 

 raid. A month later, on his way back, he was off Beachy Head, and the Council of State warned 

 the Sussex ports to stay all shipping. 2 On 30 November, 1652, Blake suffered a defeat off Dunge- 

 ness ; he retreated to the Downs, and the Dutch, left in possession of the scene of battle, landed 

 foraging parties in both Kent and Sussex, sweeping up cattle and provisions and plundering houses. 3 

 The government moved troops into the threatened counties, but the Sussex ports were no longer of 

 such wealth and strength as would tempt an enemy to strike at them, while there was of course no 

 possibility of a serious attempt at invasion. Even while Tromp was hovering off Sussex the atten- 

 tion of the Council of State was directed to the safety of Portsmouth and Harwich. 



During the remainder of the war the main area of fleet action was other than the eastern 

 Channel ; after its conclusion the Sussex fishermen were troubled by the successes of the Dunkirk 

 privateers and the encroachments of the French, for whom they had no further use. In February, 

 1656, the people of both Rye and Hastings petitioned that the coast was infested, and in April the 

 small cruiser on the station was taken offPevensey by a Dunkirker. 4 The Hastings and Brighton 

 men were said to be ' much dismayed ' by this event, and two guns were sent for the defence of 

 Hastings. There was again some ordnance at Rye, for in 1662 the townsmen petitioned for some 

 powder, saying that the maintenance of the guns was a great expense and boasting that the town 

 formerly had more artillery mounted than any other of the Cinque Ports except Dover. 5 The war 

 with Holland remained comparatively popular to the end, but the general knowledge of the 

 terrible loss of life from disease in the West Indies rendered it difficult to obtain crews for tropical 

 service. In January, 1655-6, the Admiralty ordered Rye to supply 60 seamen, but the mayor 

 wrote that the press-master was seen entering the town during the daytime whereupon all the men 

 fled. From Rye, Hastings, and three Kentish ports only 38 men could be rounded in, and then it 

 appeared that none of them had ever been to sea. 6 



The battles of the second Dutch war were fought in the North Sea, and the county was only 

 affected indirectly. A return of men available at the beginning of the war gives 200 in Sussex and 

 350 in the Cinque Ports, which would include the eastern portion of Sussex ; 7 this may be compared 

 with 300 in Hampshire and 700 in Devonshire, but shows that there was still a goodly number of 

 seafaring men to draw upon, for it is obvious that the figures do not represent the whole of the men 

 belonging to the districts, but only those still liable to impressment. After the desperate Four Days' 

 Battle of June, 1666, invasion was expected, and it would have been quite possible had Louis XIV 

 intended really to help his ally. The militia of the counties was called out, but there are no signs 

 of any particular alarm in Sussex until the winter, when the danger was past ; the jurats of Hastings 

 then petitioned to be put in a position to resist a French and Dutch descent. In 1667, Charles, 

 trusting to the success of the peace negotiations at Breda, commissioned no battle fleet and but few 

 cruisers. Naturally the Dutch privateers swarmed on the coast during the first half of the year. 

 In June, Ruiter was in the Thames and Medway ; in July he sailed down Channel with orders 

 from the States-General to destroy the trade and harass and insult the southern ports. His first halt 

 was at Portsmouth, which shows how little the Sussex coast towns had now to offer or to fear. The 

 third Dutch war, of 1672-4, was carried on with the equivocal assistance of the French, and it 

 opened with an order to the English admirals to consider whether the fleet should not collect in Rye 

 Bay instead of the Downs, ' to encourage ' our ally to come over. On 18 May, 1673, the main 

 fleet was in Rye Bay, where Charles and the duke of York visited it. 8 The three great battles 

 of the war were fought in the North Sea, and, except in the supply of men, Sussex took no 

 part in it. 



The county was now passing through a transition stage, during which it had ceased to be an 

 active agent in the provision of fleets, and its ports offered an enemy no temptation to attack for 

 invasion, while the next stage of descent independent of harbours was not yet reached. Numerous 

 references indicate that the adventurous spirit of the old Portsmen now showed in their descendants 

 chiefly in the form of wool smuggling outwards ; a little later, when the heavy customs made tea 

 and spirit smuggling inwards also profitable, Sussex became one of the three principal counties in 

 which smuggling helped to replace the loss of more legitimate trade. Added to that, as a form 

 of industry, was wrecking ; there are few allusions in official papers to the practice, which only 



1 Mercurlus PoKticus, 14 August, 1652. ' S.P. Dom. Interreg. xxiv, 17 Sept. 1652. 



* Moderate Intelligencer, 8 Dec. 1652 ; A Perfect Account, &c. 3, 7, Dec. 1652. 

 'S.P. Dom. Interreg. cxxiv, 51 ; cxxvi, 1 1 8, 119, 128. 



5 Hist. AfSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. iv, 244.. ' Ibid. 227 ; S.P. Dom. Interreg. cxxxiv, 59. 



' Add. MSS. 9316, fol. 79. ' S.P. Dom. Chas. II, cccxxxv, 193. 



I 5 8 



