BROOM AND WHIPLASH 313 



Newcastle, for it lost nothing in the telling and repeti- 

 tion. People at Newcastle were declared to be at 

 their wits' end owing to the tidings of the national 

 disgrace, and they gave up their own city for 

 lost ; yet they set to work at once to draw the ships 

 up the Tyne for safety, to plant guns, repair the walls, 

 and build a fort at Tynemouth Castle. Newcastle 

 folk had special cause for fear and panic, because, as 

 a result of the raid, coal had risen to 6 a chaldron. 

 It was reported that the Dutch were resolved to attack 

 Newcastle and destroy the coal fleet. 



Whitby people were "perplexed that the Dutch 

 vapour so publicly in the Thames, " the vapouring, 

 however, being much more full of body than the 

 corresponding performance nowadays ; Bridlington, 

 while sorry to hear the news, hoped that already the 

 King's forces had repulsed the invaders. " Strange 

 discourse " was caused at Lynn, in Norfolk, by the 

 report of the burning of the English ships ; and at 

 Yarmouth and elsewhere wrath prevailed, as well as 

 consternation. Though every one at Yarmouth talked 

 "at a strange rate," yet there was something more 

 than speech, for the drums beat bravely, and there 

 and elsewhere noble lords who had been temporarily 

 sobered into recognising the country's peril, and 

 accordingly their own, left their debaucheries and 

 frivolities and to martial music did their best to enrol 

 the most willing and warlike men, and encourage them 

 to meet the enemy. The Dutch were then credited, 

 and rightly, with the intention of ravaging the east 

 coast, after their success in the Thames and Medway. 



It was on Wednesday, i5th June, that the Dutch 



