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'if they had noticed the King's proclamation; they replied that they took service there [France]
when they could have none in England, but when the voyage was done they would consider
of it.' 54
For these men, clearly, the need to work took priority over obeying the decrees of
their king. As a corollary to this attitude, or the explicit anti-Stuart motivations of
some British personnel, others did answer the recall home to fight the enemies of
their dread sovereign - or at least decided to make a run for it once hostilities
became official. The Bo'ness (Fife) seamen Alexander Moody and Alexander
Williamson, with the Orcadian Andrew Misseth, deserted their posts aboard
Admiral Johan Evertsen's flagship Het Hoffvan Zeeland (58) within days of the for
mal Dutch declaration of war in late January 1665. They left behind at least three
other Scots and a number of Englishmen.55
Having eventually issued a Parliamentary recall Act in 1652, early the following
year the Commonwealth was angered - and also seemed genuinely surprised -
when large numbers of British were found amongst the Dutch prisoners taken at
the Battle of Portland. Decimation was suggested
you will find many Scots, Irish, and English among the seamen that you have taken, whether
it were not fitting to cause martial law to be executed on some of them for example's sake, and
put them to fling the die that one out of them may suffer for it, for there hath past one or two
Acts of Parliament for their return home to serve the State and not to serve any foreign State
upon the pain of death.' 56
Amongst the Dutch prisoners there were enough English and Scots to place the
issue near the very top of the Government agenda in both the Council of State and
the Committee for Trade and Foreign Affairs.57 Just a few days after the British vic
tory at the St James' Day Fight [Tweedaagse Zeeslag), 25 July/4 August-26 July/5
August 1666, it was decreed that all English subjects taken prisoner in the future
were to be hung 'as rebels and traitors'.58 Enough such men must have been found
amongst the large haul of prisoners to warrant such an instruction. A close inti
mate of Secretary of State Lord Arlington, the rising political star Sir Thomas
Clifford, Member of Parliament, was aboard Royal Charles as a volunteer during
the battle and seems to have been present at initial interrogations of prisoners
immediately afterwards.59 Most of the Dutch prisoners came from the two ships
taken; Sneek (66, Friesland admiralty) and Tholen (60, flagship of the Vice-admi
ral of Zeeland, Adriaan Banckert). Tholen certainly had British crew aboard (see
below); some escaped with Banckert in the final moments before she was taken,
but most were killed or taken prisoner. But even the periodic emphasis of death
sentences for non-compliance may have remained merely theoretical it was
probably just as impractical to execute every man taken as it was to make an exam
ple of every deserter and mutineer. The educated Scotsman George Morris of
Leith served with Banckert, 1665-6, was wounded aboard Tholen but escaped
with the Vice-admiral, and later captured. Morris survived his imprisonment:
either escaping or exchanged, he was back aboard Zeeland warships in early
1667.60 Did Morris pass for a Dutchman, shielded by his shipmates and knowl
edge of the language, or was his nationality discovered and ignored?
