The Battle of Beachy Head

In June 1690 the French Mediterranean fleet had joined its forces to Admiral Tourville's fleet in Brest. Admiral Tourville then sailed into the Channel in June. Admiral Arthur Herbert 1st earl of Torrington's English fleet and Evertsen's Dutch fleet were near the Isle of Wight. After seeing the French fleet Torrington and Evertsen decided to turn about towards Dover. While near Beachy Head on 9 July they received orders to fight, and so the fleets met in Battle near battle of Beachy Head on 10 July 1690.

The Dutch ships were in the van and engaged the French, the English center kept itself at the maximum gun range and the English rear did engage the French. The result was that the Dutch squadron was set upon by larger number of Frenchmen and suffered heavy damage. At first it was only a minor French victory with 1 Dutch ship sunk. The allied fleet then fled with the French in pursuit. In the days of this pursuit four more Dutch ships were destroyed or scuttled to avoid capture. The aftermath of the Battle of Beachy head saw temporary control of the Channel for the French. Control of the Channel was however regained shortly after when the Anglo-Dutch fleets concentrated.

After the battle the Dutch and a lot of Englishmen had trouble finding another explanation than malice or cowardice for the fact that Torrington's English center did not engage the French. When the counts of Pembroke and Devonshire asked him particulars Evertsen stayed polite by stating that the question why Torrington had not engaged the French should be answered by Torrington³. The French were however less timid in their remarks. Tourville stated: 'Herbert did not want to fight me and did not even fight one of our large ships. I fought with his vice-admiral and two seconds as large as his.'⁴. Chateaurenault remarked that the Dutch had made a mistake by not prolonging their line enough to engage the first ship of the French line⁵. Furthermore he stated that the English had abandoned the Dutch⁶. And still further Chateaurenault stated that he had not seen the English, but had come to know that: Herbert did not dare to find himself in reach of Tourville's or any other considerable ship, but preferred to be in the reach of the Modéré, the Comte and the Cheval Marin, which will confirm you in what I said about that general on account of the Battle of Bantry Bay⁷. Renau made similar statements about Herbert's part of the line. Torrington was court martialled and aquitted, but lost his position as admiral.

It might be worthwhile to have a closer look at the Dutch squadron in the Battle of Beachy Head. For this we have a 5 July list of the 22 Dutch ships of the line in the allied fleet at Beachy Head⁸. For the fate of the ships we have a lot of other accounts. We can conclude that the total Dutch loss was 5 ships of the line and 3 burners.

Captain Snelle of the Maas beached his vessel between Hastings and Rye and was there attacked by four French ships. He however made two batteries on shore and repulsed the enemy. Afterwards he refloated and reached Goeree with only one mast⁹.

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