Series 1 > Journals of Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, with his observations on public affairs and other memoranda, 1665-1676

OBSERVATIONS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS 235
thought by the most judicious men that that on battell might
have put ane end to the war and have produced most advan-
tagious conditions for the English: but they verified the
knowen saying, vincere scit Hannibal sed 5 victoria uti. Their
pretence indeid was that they would not pousse their victory
farder by hazarding what they had already won, because the
appearand air of the croun, the Due of York, was present in
person. But whow weak this is let any man judge, unles they
mean that by intercepting the Dutch their way home they
might have made them desperat and so fight like Devils, and
that it hes ever bein a good maxime to make a fleing ennemy
a bridge of gold. Whowever the Dutch concluded that they
would have no mo Admirals that ware gentlemen (for Obdam
was so) because they never fought fortunatly with their
ennemies when they had such. But certainly this is nought
but a fiction made by a commonwealth to cast a blur upon
nobility, seing thir same very states have fought most
couragiously and advantagiously under the conduct of the
Princes of Orange.
Upon his death De Ruyter was chosen admirall, and van
Tromp the younger, upon a suspicion of being to affectionat
to the intrest of the King of Britain, was disgraced. The nixt
(but rather should have bein made the first) was his Maks
bad choyse of a false chirking willain, Mr. Douning,1 to be his
agent to negotiat affaires at the States Generali in the be¬
ginning of that war, who steid of composing things rancored
them worse and made them almost uncurable, judging it good
fisching in troubled waters, wheiras if a moderat and ane
honest man had bein made use of in that business, things
would never have come to the height they were at, since the
offers of reparation then made by the Dutch to his Majesty
ware by all indifferent spectators judged most fair and reason¬
able. The 3d is that in the engadgement the following summer,
1666, the King’s intelligence should have bein so bad as to
have apprehended at that tyme the joining of the French
fleet wt the Hollander (wheiras their was no such thing, but
1 Sir George Downing, 1623 (?), 1684, long Resident at the Hague under the
Commonwealth and Charles n. See Nat. Diet. Biog,