IFriday 14th June 1667.

Engel de Ruyter.

While Cornelis de Witt was writing his letter, Engel de Ruyter, a son of de Ruyter by his second wife, was sailing up the Medway from Sheerness to join his father off Gillingham. Engel, who was only 18, was serving in the “Hollandia” but he left his ship in the Thames Estuary and sailed up the Medway in a small vessel. He arrived at Gillingham Reach late at night and as the “Royal Oak” “Royal James” and “Loyal London” were still burning off Upnor he ventured higher up the river to take a closer look. Later in his diary he recorded his impression and noted down: “It was a joy to see” At four o’clock the next morning he went aboard the “Royal Charles” and after inspecting her with great interest he wrote down in his diary that she was a mighty ship, with three decks, and thrity-two guns still in position.

Later in the morning Engel boarded the “Harderwijck” commanded by Jan Pauwelsz. van Gelder, his step-brother and there he met his father, Admiral de Ruyter. The latter, with his two sons, joined a landing-party who went ashore during the afternoon in three sloops. During this trip, so Engel later recounted in his diary, planks were removed from a battery which the Dutch had previously destroyed; so it seems probable that the party landed at Gillingham and took the planks from the battery at that end of the chain. Engel de Ruyter also recorded that it was during the late afternoon of Friday 14 June that the Dutch left the scene of their victory and began to withdraw down the Medway, assisted by the ebbing tide and taking with them the “Royal Charles” and the “Unity”. Engel himself sailed in the “Harderwijck”, and then, later, in a sloop in the company of his father and Cornelis de Witt; and during their journey to the mouth of the Medway they met with a Dutch vessel which brought letters for the fleet commanders from the States-General.

The withdrawal from the Medway was not carried out without incident. At various places along the shore detachments of English horse and foot gathered and these fired on the Dutch ships whenever they could. This intermittent fire made the navigation of the river even more difficult, and just before she reached the Mussel Bank, the “Harderwijck” with de Ruyter himself aboard, went aground. She stuck so hard, that despite all the efforts of the Dutch she could not be got off, and it was then, that de Ruyter, with Cornelis de Witt and Engel, transferred to a sloop in which they continued their voyage. Some other vessels in addition to the “Harderwijck” also grounded, but were got off without difficulty, and the “Harderwijck” herself was later able to resume her withdrawal when the tide turned and floated her again.

The feat of navigation involved in bringing the captured “Royal Charles” down the river Medway in such difficult circumstances won for the Dutch a tribute from the English themselves. In his diary on 22 June 1667 Pepys recounted that two naval officers had informed him that the Dutch carried the “Royal Charles” down the river:
   

"The Royal Charles"  The Dutch Flag at the main, is sailing from Chatham, towards Holland. .............quote. ' At a time, both for tides and wind,when the best pilot in Chatham would not have undertaken it, they heeling her on one side to make her draw little water, and so carried her away safe ’ .........unquote.

Despite the difficulties which they were meeting in taking their ships down the Medway, the Dutch remained fully masters of the situation, and this they showed when they readied the sunken ships at the Mussel Bank. With remarkable coolness they detached some boats’ crews with orders to burn as much of the upper works of the ships as possible, and this final Parthian manoeuvre was duly carried out. Shortly afterwards the entire Dutch squadron, with their two prizes, entered the broader and safer waters of the Thames Estuary; and there with justifiable satisfaction they fired off their cannon to celebrate the successful conclusion of a difficult and dangerous withdrawal.

The Dutch government presented de Ruyter with this golden goblet, in recognition of his victory of  "The Medway Raid".

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