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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History
Topic: The English Revolution

Mr. Downing to General Monck - Sir William Clarke, The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, vol. 3 [1899]

Edition used:

The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, Secretary to the Council of the Army, 1647-1649, and to General Monck and the Commanders of the Army in Scotland, 1651-1660, ed. C.H. Firth (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899). 4 vols.

Part of: The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, 4 vols.

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Mr. Downing to General Monck

Hague, 26 Nov.6 Dec. 1658.

Right Honorable,

f. 198.Itt is nott to bee imagined what an outcry is heere uppon the French Ambassadour and my giving in each of us a Memoriall to the States Generall, declaring his Highnesse and the King of France his intention to endeavour a peace in a seperate way between the Kings of Sweden and Denmark without intermedling other interests and matters therewith; they say they must not mind what France and England say, but follow their owne busines and interest, and that they shall never bee well till they have a little brought downe the courage of the English; yett it was not beleeved that his Highness would send a fleet to the Sound this Winter, untill that this dayes post brought newes of it’s being gone, a[nd] I need not tell you that this gives a great alarme. The 4000 men which are to goe for the Sound sett sayle upon Tuesday last from Amsterdam to the Texell, whither also De Ruyther is gone with sea men for 4 men of warr with the which hee was to convoy them, and to morrow the[y] were to sett sayle; whether the newes come this day by the post of his Highnes’ fleete being gone that way may put them to new councells, time must shew. It hath frozen hard this 3 or 4 dayes, and snowed alsoe, [so] that people are already running upon the ice upon their scattes, and they begin to talke of the Sound freezing upp. I had ye[ste]rday a letter from Zealand of the 2d instant, which saith that a Master of a vessell arrived there reports that hee had mett an English fleete of men of warr some dayes before upon the Dogg sands in the North Sea, yett men would not beleeve him, for that it was possitively writte from London, that that fleete was to goe to the coast of Spaine, and the last letters from St. Sebastian say that the Spanish plate fleete is already past the Havana. Thorine hath bin stormed by the Poles and the Imperialists, but they were repulsed by the beseidged with greate loss; the King of Sweden hath raised the seidge from before Copenhagen, and the Danes are demolishing the works that they had made, and the King is now at Landishroonen with his fleete.

G. D.