Excerpt from Life and Times of General Sir Edward Cecil, Viscount Wimbledon, Colonel of an English Regiment in the Dutch Service, 1605-1631, and One of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, 1628-1638, Vol. 1 of 2 The second fleet was also under the command of a soldier of fortune who had likewise spent the best years of his life in Holland. These two gi - a'evant colonels were transformed into admirals for the occasion, and were also dubbed generals at sea, being invested with supreme naval and military authority. There being only three instances in the seventeenth century of soldiers of fortune, who had served under a foreign flag, being appointed to the high, but unenviable, position of commander-in-chief of an English fleet, I have chosen one of these three anomalous commanders for the subject of the following biography. The names of these three generals at sea, given chrono logically, are Sir Edward Cecil, created Viscount Wimble don, Robert Bertie, tenth Lord Willoughby de Eresby, created Earl of Lindsey, and George Monk, created Duke of Albemarle. Of these three generals at sea, the first and second were notable failures as admirals. Monk was as successful on the sea as on land; but then he was a heaven-born commander, and having served in two disastrous naval expeditions before he was of age, which left a vivid and sad remembrance in his mind, he knew what course to avoid when he himself commanded an English fleet. The lives of Robert Bertie Earl of Lindsey, and George Monk Duke of Albemarle, have already been written. Both have an eulogistic memoir in the Biograp/iia Britannica, and Monk's life has been written by that able historian, M. Guizot. There remains there fore only the life of Sir Edward Cecil Viscount Wimbledon, for me to offer to the reading public. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.