“The Dutch admiral, Van Ghent, was puzzled; he seemed not to know, and probably did not know, what the English captain meant; he therefore sent a boat, thinking it possible that the yacht might be in distress; when the captain told his orders, mentioning also that he had the ambassadress on board.  Van Ghent himself then came on board, with a handsome compliment to Lady Temple, and, making his personal inquiries of the captain, received the same answer as before.  The Dutchman said he had no orders upon the point, which he rightly believed to be still unsettled, and could not believe that the fleet, commanded by an admiral, was to strike to the King’s pleasure-boat.

“When the Admiral returned to his ship, the captain also, ’perplexed enough,’ applied to Lady Temple, who soon saw that he desired to get out of his difficulty by her help; but the wife of Sir William Temple called forth the spirit of Dorothy Osborne.  ‘He knew,’ she told the captain, ’his orders best, and what he was to do upon them, which she left to him to follow as he thought fit, without any regard to her or her children.’  The Dutch and English commanders then proceeded each upon his own course, and Lady Temple was safely landed in England.”

There is an account of this incident in a letter of Sir Charles Lyttelton to Viscount Hatton, in the Hatton Correspondence.  He tells us that the poor captain, Captain Crow of The Monmouth, “found himself in the Tower about it;” but he does not add any further information as to the part which Dorothy played in the matter.

After their retirement to Sheen and Moor Park, Surrey, we know nothing distinctively of Lady Temple, and little is known of their family life.  They had only two children living, having lost as many as seven in their infancy.  In 1684 one of these children, their only daughter, died of small-pox; she was buried in Westminster Abbey.  There is a letter of hers written to her father which shows some signs of her mother’s affectionate teaching, and which we cannot forbear to quote.  It is copied from Courtenay, vol. ii. p. 113.

SIR,—­I deferred writing to you till I could tell you that I had received all my fine things, which I have just now done; but I thought never to have done giving you thanks for them.  They have made me so very happy in my new clothes, and everybody that comes does admire them above all things, but yet not so much as I think they deserve; and now, if papa was near, I should think myself a perfect pope, though I hope I should not be burned as there was one at Nell Gwyn’s door the 5th of November, who was set in a great chair, with a red nose half a yard long, with some hundreds of boys throwing squibs at it.  Monsieur Gore and I agree mighty well, and he makes me believe I shall come to something at last; that is if he stays, which I don’t doubt but he will, because all the fine ladies will petition for him.  We are got rid of the workmen now, and our house is ready to entertain you.  Come when you please, and you will meet nobody more glad to see you than your most obedient and dutiful daughter,