Letters and Papers relating to the First Dutch War, 1652 - 1651.
Edited by Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Vol. I. (Printed for the Navy Records Society.)— All the publications of the Council of the Navy Records Society are of much value to the student of British history, and none is likely to be of greater impost- ance than the present volume which has been published under the editorship of Mr. Gardiner, which deals with the earliest and, in some respects, the greatest of Dutch wars. The first document is the narrative of Richard Gibson, a sailor who was born at Great Yarmouth in 1635, being the son of the master of a ship using the French trade. He himself sailed in the Tiger' in the fleet sent under Blake against Rupert in 1649. Gibson gives, among other things, "a discourse between an English sea-captain and a Dutch skipper how the English came to beat the Dutch at sea." The conclusion is worth quoting, in spite of its uncouth grammar, if only for its seamanlike straightforwardness. "Thus we came to fight the English with gentlemen com- manders at sea: and you us with seamen commanders of your ships, and by this means you came to beat the Dutch. But, if ever hereafter we showed fight with the English for the mastery of the .sea, with seamen commanders and you us with gentlemen commanders, we should beat you." Gibson's reminiscences ought not perhaps to be taken as absolutely correct, for he did not write them down till 1702. The remainder of the book which is arranged under the heads "The Approach of War," "The Honour of the Flag," and "The Northern Voyage," are based mainly upon original documents which Mr. Gardiner has had the opportunity of seeing in the archives of the Admiralty at the Hague as well as at home. Each part has prefaced to it a special introduction, which, it is needless to say, is full of valuable historical matter. It is too soon to pronounce definitely upon the permanent importance of a work of which the first volume alone has been published, but the great care which Mr. Gardiner is bestowing upon his enterprise is apparent in every page. He is careful even to preserve mistakes; thus "the blunder of English writers in calling the great admiral Van Tromp has been left unaltered." To the general reader this volume will be of especial interest for the details which it gives in connection with the fitting out of fleets in the middle of the seventeenth century.
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