The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-02 00:00:00

LIFE OF DE RUYTI!II.

Dear to the Dutch is the name of 1)e Ruyter. When
mentioned, it summons up before them bright pictures of
their old naval gloriesf when their cannons were heard
in distant seas, and their flags won garlands of oak-
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leaves. Yet who would have believed that in the figure
of a little cabin-boy, who in the year 1607, busied him-
self about the ports of Zealand, was the embryo seaman
who, at a future day, was to be a ruler on the waves—a
victor on the waters. Do Ruyter was born at Flushing,
and at the age of eleven began his seafaring life on
board of a vessel at that place, and soon rose to the rank
of an officer of the first class. One of the earliest engage-
ments in which he diSplayed the determined bravery that
made his name so feared, was in his repulsing the Irish,
who attempted to take Dublin out of the hands of the
English. Scarcely,- however, had the noise of this

transaction passed by, before his adventurous spirit led
him into the broad seas that skirt the shores of the West
Indies and Brazil. After running like wildfire through
these seas, he made sail for Algiers, to which port he
had been ordered, when he ran ashore a vessel belonging
to Tunis, consigned to perdition its Algerine Corsairs,
and had the high satisfaction of releasing forty Christian
slaves.

De Ruyter was, indeed, the true sword in the scabbard
of Van Tromp, and they two together swept the seas of
Europe in the time of our Second Charles, with power
almost irresistible. The English found him a powerful
and perilous antagonist. In 1653 he distinguished him-
self in the terrible battle near the mouth of the Channel,
an id the cold storm-winds of February, when our re-
doubtable Blake commanded the English, and Von
Tromp and 1)e Ruyter the Dutch. Again, too, at the
great battle fought in the Downs, June 1666, against
Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle, De Ruyter
shoWed a bold and unflinching front. In this action it
was that a beautiful and generous trait was developed on
the part of the younger Von Tromp, which shows what
confidence may be placed in brave minds, despite of party
differences. De Ruyter was a stout Republican—young
Tromp, his rival, an inveterate adherent of the House of
Orange. Nevertheless they went to sea together. In
the three days fight, the Dutch had the best, but it was at
all events as severe a fight as could be, from the inflexible

valour of the English squadrons. Both De Ruyter and
Von Tromp were obliged several times to shift their flags
from ship to ship, and thelatter having been bOrne down
to the centre of the English, was reduced to the utmost
extremit', and in dread of being crushed, when his rival
and political foe, throwing to the winds all party
animosities, nobly ran to his rescue, and saved him
from ultimate destruction. De Ruyter, too, was no less
high-zninded, and it is on record, that in an ensuing ac-
tion with the English, Dc Ruyter, when obliged to re-
treat, did so, exclaiming, " How wretched am I, that

not one bullet of so many thousands will free me from
this disgrace."
But De Ruyter made compensation afterwards to the
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English for this defeat. In 1667, going up to Sheer-
_ness' he.cemmitted great havoc among the English fleet,
and the Insult which be heaped upon them in that me-
morable expedition up the Thames, was further aggra-
vated by his destroying Upnor Castle, and burning the
ships at Chatham. The Royal Oak was one of the
vessels thus consumed, the intrepid commander of which,
Captain Douglas, perished in the flames, though he
might readily have escaped, exclaiming, as he consumed
in the fire, " Never was it known that a Douglas left his
post without orders."
It was at the attack upon Messina, in Sicily, that De
Ruyter met his death-blow. The Frenchmen knew his
invincible courage well. " I would purchase with my
life the glory of De Ruyter," wrote d'Estrees, the
French Admiral, to Colbert. But "glory," in this
Syracusan affair, demanded the life of Buten On the
mornimr of that engagement the French came out to
meet the. Dutch, led on by the celebrated Du Quesne ;
the Spaniards, with their customary caution, kept at a
distance ; but De Ruyter rushed into the centre, broke
the French line, and was in the act of chasing, when a
cannon-shot wounded him in the left heel and right leg,
and a fever came on, which closed his spirited career.
When Louis XIV. was congratulated upon the death of
so potent an enemy, he replied, " Every one must bo
sorry at the death of so great a man."
Dignities, sad to say, *ere ready waiting him at the
very moment of his death. The Spanish Council had
bestowed on him the title of Duke, and transmitted a
patent investing him with that dignity ; but he breathed
his last as the footsteps of these bearers of the dim
world's honours were treading up the staircase of his
house.

His remains were magnificently interred at Amster-
dam, at the public expense, and a superb monument
erected to his memory. Flushing, in the statue she has
just decreed him, has honoured him late, but perhaps
that lateness best bespeaks the uneffaceable effect with
which his long-past glory acts upon her mind.