316 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



30 (the Dutch said 32) guns on board, still the 

 ammunition supply was so short that it was soon 

 spent. When the Dutch took her they hoisted their 

 own flag over the English flag, and the famous painting 

 by Van der Velde shows her being towed across the 

 North Sea with that display of bunting shameful and 

 humiliating to England and shedding lustre on the 

 Dutch. The Royal Charles, however, was not taken 

 off at once. She struck the ground and kept fast till 

 the next tide, a mere handful of Dutchmen remaining 

 on board. The invaders also leisurely completed their 

 task of burning the ships they had captured and 

 could not take away. 



Utter panic seized the country when the details 

 of the invasion were known. Fierce recriminations 

 took place concerning the state of the Navy, which 

 had been grossly and wickedly neglected. It was 

 believed that London would be attacked and sacked, 

 and terrified families fled from Greenwich and Black- 

 wall, in the expectation of those places falling before 

 the capital. Merchants were stunned with fear, and 

 bankers shut up their shops. " People are ready to 

 tear their hair off their heads. We are betrayed," 

 wrote a London correspondent despairingly, and there 

 was indeed cause for the belief that persons high in 

 office had acted treacherously and disloyally. The 

 King himself, roused to fury enough to forget his own 

 base pleasures for the time, sent a circular letter to 

 the legal profession, speaking of the " insolent spirit 

 of our enemies," and begging for money in consider- 

 able sums "by way of loans." The East India 

 Company was asked for a loan of 20,000, and appeals 



