A base and piratical attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet by a large force under Sir Robert Holmes, on the 13th of March, 1672, was the first overt act of treachery on the part of the English government.  The attempt completely failed, through the prudence and valor of the Dutch admirals; and Charles reaped only the double shame of perfidy and defeat.  He instantly issued a declaration of war against the republic, on reasoning too palpably false to require refutation, and too frivolous to merit record to the exclusion of more important matter from our narrow limits.

Louis at least covered with the semblance of dignity his unjust co-operation in this violence.  He soon advanced with his army, and the contingents of Munster and Cologne, his allies, amounting altogether to nearly one hundred and seventy thousand men, commanded by Conde, Turenne, Luxemburg, and others of the greatest generals of France.  Never was any country less prepared than were the United Provinces to resist this formidable aggression.  Their army was as naught; their long cessation of military operations by land having totally demoralized that once invincible branch of their forces.  No general existed who knew anything of the practice of war.  Their very stores of ammunition had been delivered over, in the way of traffic, to the enemy who now prepared to overwhelm them.  De Witt was severely, and not quite unjustly, blamed for having suffered the country to be thus taken by surprise, utterly defenceless, and apparently without resource.  Envy of his uncommon merit aggravated the just complaints against his error.  But, above all things, the popular affection to the young prince threatened, in some great convulsion, the overthrow of the pensionary, who was considered eminently hostile to the illustrious House of Orange.

[Illustration:  A HOLLAND BEAUTY]

William III., prince of Orange, now twenty-two years of age, was amply endowed with those hereditary qualities of valor and wisdom which only required experience to give him rank with the greatest of his ancestors.  The Louvenstein party, as the adherents of the House of Orange were called, now easily prevailed in their long-conceived design of placing him at the head of affairs, with the titles of captain-general and high admiral.  De Witt, anxious from personal considerations, as well as patriotism, to employ every means of active exertion, attempted the organization of an army, and hastened the equipment of a formidable fleet of nearly a hundred ships of the line and half as many fire-ships.  De Ruyter, now without exception the greatest commander of the age, set sail with this force in search of the combined fleets of England and France, commanded by the duke of York and Marshal D’Etrees.  He encountered them, on the 6th of May, 1672, at Solebay.  A most bloody engagement was the result of this meeting.  Sandwich, on the side of the English, and Van Ghent, a Dutch admiral, were slain.  The glory of the day was divided; the victory doubtful; but the sea was not the element on which the fate of Holland was to be decided.