A LOST POSSESSION OF ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2263, 15 July 1897, Page 55

A LOST POSSESSION OF ENGLAND.

In the year 1G63 Captain, afterwards Viceadmiral, Sir Robert Holmes, during a time of profound peace, attacked and captured the Dutch possessions on the West Coast of Africa. Sailing across the Atlantic, he reduced the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, and recbristened it, in honour of the Duke of York, New York. On his return to England he was denounced by the Dutch as a freebooter and thrown into prison, but on the outbreak of hostilities was released and restored to hiß rank, in which be long gave his country the benefit of his eminent abilities. Of these two losses — Goree and New Amsterdam — Goree was thought at the time to be the more serious. The news reached Holland in May 1661. Secret instructions to

proceed for its recovery were immediately issued to the Dutch admiral in the Mediterranean, Michael de Ruyter. He sailed to Cadiz, and put in there for a pilot for the Weet Coast. Here he most inopportunely fell in with the EDglish Admiral, Sir John Lawsorj, who was very inquisitive as to the Dutchman's destination. Sir John crowded all sail for England, and reported that he had left De Rayter sailing south-west, but had been unable to discover his destination. The British ambassador at the Hague wa3 at once ordered to find out. The object of so much diplomatic perturbation and such extensive military preparation* was the island — or, rather, tbe rock — of Goree, about two miles in circumference, and the centre of a considerable trade which was sometimes described as gold and sometimes as gum, but which was always and substantially slaves. It had been acquired peacefully by the Dutch in the year 1617 ; but the first hostile attack of 16G3 was the prelude to a century and a-half of ceaseless conquest and reoonquest. Being unapproachable from one side, and on the other side only by a beacb, one half of which was hopelessly surf-beaten if there waß any weather at all, Goree was a placa of considerable strength, and could be held by about 150 men against a much larger force. Being, however, a mere rock, the extent to which it could be fortified was strictly limited, so that a hostile expedition might exactly calculate whether it was worth while to attack, and the garrison could equally determine whether, in any case, bloodshed would be useless or not. Nevertheless several brisk encounters took place on the various occasions when tbe rock changed hands, and the opportunity for making a stout resistance was never fairer than when Da Ruyter cast anchor before the island on Ootober 22, 166 i. For it happened that a week before eight vessels of the British West African Company, mounting 128 guns, with 266 men, under convoy of a British man-of-war, had put in at Goree. Bat De Ruyter, who was a man of the most eminent capacity, diplomatic as well as naval, found means to divide the sea service from the land service, and deal with each separately. The details of this negotiation have been carefully preserved; they all hiDged on the question of divided commands ; and the end of it was that the garrißon were allowed to depart to the British colony of Gambia with the honours of war\ and the Dutch marched in. When once inside they admitted that if ib had come to blows they would never have got in at all. however, the place was now once more Dutch, and remained in their hands unchallenged for a period of 12 years. Goree was the principal loss endured by Holland in the course of the war that closed at r/ne Peace of Nimeguen. It was captured by D'Bstreeß in the year 1677, and its possession was confirmed to France by the seventh article of the treaty signed on August 10 in the following year. From this date the maritime supremacy of Holland began to wane, and as regards Goree she dropped out of the running, having held the post, with a single interruption, for exactly 60 years. — From Walter Frewbn Lord's article " A Lost Possession of England," in the Nineteenth Century for May.