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28th. Captain Guy to dine with me, and he and I much talk
together. He cries out of the discipline of the fleet, and
confesses really that; the true English valour we talk of, is
almost spent and worn out; few of the commanders doing what they
should do, and he much fears we shall therefore be beaten the
next year. He assures me we were beaten home the last June
fight, and that the whole fleet was ashamed to hear of our
bonfires. He commends Smith and cries out of Holmes for an idle,
proud, conceited, though stout fellow. He tells me we are to owe
the loss of so many ships on the sands, not to any fault of the
pilots, but to the weather; but in this I have good authority to
fear there was something more. He says the Dutch do fight in
very good order, and we in none at all. He says that in the July
fight, both the Prince and Holmes had their belly-fulls, and were
fain to go aside; though, if the wind had continued, we had
utterly beaten them. He do confess the whole to be governed by a
company of fools, and fears our ruine.


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