HOLLAND’S NELSON.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8823, 27 May 1907, Page 1

HOLLAND’S NELSON.

I Holland celebrat’d on March 21th the three-hundredth anniversary of tha birth o£ her greatest admiral, : De Ruyter, a man whore deeds place him in the first rank of the world’s sea fighters. Representatives from the Great Powers laid tokens of homage on his tomb. Da Euytsr came of a fighting stock and from boyhood up was inured to battle. In the middle e£ the seventeenth century the naval strength of Holland was very different to what it is now. Then she had a far more powerful fleet—on paper, at any rate—than England, and as England coveted her trade, war became inevitable. It broke out in 1G52 and lasted, with intervals, until 1673, when the power of Holland was broken. In it De Ruyter did great deeds. In the battle of Portland ha took the only British ship that was captured; off Scheveningen his ship lost half ter craw. Each side claimed the victory in the furious battles—“ confused me’ees of great fleets, composed of ships of all sorts and sigea —a war full of long-forgotten deeds and devotion on either side," The Dutch were never really beaten, but they suffered cruel losses in the : r trade. “ The riches of the State were almost dry; workshops were closed, work was suspended. The country was full of beggars ; grass grew in the streets; and in Amater. dam 1500 houses stood empty.” De Ruyter w r on a dubious battle in June, 1666, after four days’ desperate fighting, and on the day after was

found “sweeping his cabin and feeding bis fowls,” so simple was he in his living. Then be eame to grief again with the English, and having been deserted by Van Tromp, was obliged to reiire. “Oh, God ! that I should be so unhappy !” he cried, “Out of so many thousands of bullets, is ihere none to slay me?” But a year later—the saddest in the annals of the British navy—he had bis revenge, With a great fleet he sailed up the Thames, captured British shipping, and got near enough to London for his guns to be beard there. When Charles 11. joined with Loiris XIV. to ruin the Dutch, De Ruyter won battle after battle, and by his achievements saved bis country in an hour of the greatest peril. He died, as he had lived, in battle. “Lord, have a caro for my country’s fleet,” he prayed as ho was borne below, and between the broadsides • he called to his men to have courage. Then, finding that his hours were numbered, he turned to the consolation of tha B;blo. It is satisfactory to know that the greatest naval Power was represented at the celebrations in honor of this hero, patriot, and Christian knight.