who come after them, found there, they plundered and took all away; and
the watermen that carried us did further tell us, that our own soldiers
are far more terrible to those people of the country-towns than the Dutch
themselves. We were told at the batteries, upon my seeing of the
field-guns that were there, that, had they come a day sooner, they had
been able to have saved all; but they had no orders, and lay lingering
upon the way, and did not come forward for want of direction.
Commissioner Pett's house was all unfurnished, he having carried away all
his goods. I met with no satisfaction whereabouts the chaine was broke,
but do confess I met with nobody that I could well expect to have
satisfaction [from], it being Sunday; and the officers of the Yard most of
them abroad, or at the Hill house, at the pay of the Chest, which they did
make use of to day to do part in. Several complaints, I hear, of the
Monmouth's coming away too soon from the chaine, where she was placed with
the two guard-ships to secure it; and Captain Robert Clerke, my friend, is
blamed for so doing there, but I hear nothing of him at London about it;
but Captain Brookes's running aground with the "Sancta Maria," which was
one of the three ships that were ordered to be sunk to have dammed up the
River at the chaine, is mightily cried against, and with reason, he being
the chief man to approve of the abilities of other men, and the other two
slips did get safe thither and he run aground; but yet I do hear that
though he be blameable, yet if she had been there, she nor two more to
them three would have been able to have commanded the river all over. I
find that here, as it hath been in our river, fire-ships, when fitted,
have been sunk afterwards, and particularly those here at the Mussle,
where they did no good at all. Our great ships that were run aground and
sunk are all well raised but the "Vanguard," which they go about to raise
to-morrow. "The Henery," being let loose to drive up the river of
herself, did run up as high as the bridge, and broke down some of the
rails of the bridge, and so back again with the tide, and up again, and