P.G. Rogers

The Dutch in the Medway by P. G. Rogers concerns a Dutch incursion into the Thames and Medway rivers in England in 1667 during the Second Anglo-Dutch war. Not a bad book, it starts out with a lot of background on both navies and their government, then gets down to the actual campaign. Reading pleasure is a bit put off by the large number of primary source quotes which are often hard to understand due to archaic punctuation and spelling, not to mention grammar and the more technical terms. Overall it is a decent history of the event but not really a must read.… (mer)

This is the book I intended to write and I started researching, collecting and reading in order to do so, after I read Mr. Pepys, in great distress, groaning and crafting defenses of his beloved Navy Board when, in 1666 the Dutch Fleet under Admiral de Ruyter sunk and fired the Royal Navy guard ships, broke the chain across the river and sailed up the Medway from my home-town Sheerness, which they had already captured, and burnt the English fleet at Samuel’s beloved Chatham Dockyard.
Author Phillip Rogers had the same motivation as I had – Kent lads, born and bred in the Medway Naval towns, spending our early days sailing and messing about in boats in the Thames Estuary, Medway and Swale rivers. These were our home towns the Dutch burnt!

Having now read and thoroughly relished this history – and dipping back into the Samuel Pepys diaries for the respective dates as I did so - I can only give a pleasurable sigh and shelve the book, for later rereading I am sure. There is nothing else I could add to the story that Rogers so carefully researched and has skillfully written.

Unless there is an unfound store of the personal stories of the participants somewhere? Perhaps in Holland .. or in the Kent Archives? I wonder if …
No. Phillip Rogers has told the story too well!… (mer)