older building. There are several memorials to the
family in the Parish Church and the Churchyard.
Roger Appleton became a baronet in 1611, the year
in which that honour was first instituted by James I
as a means of remedying the deficiency in the royal
income; Roger's grandfather had been knighted.
His son, Sir Henry, fought for Charles I in the Civil
War and, taking part in the second outbreak in 1648,
was made prisoner when Colchester surrendered to
Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Parliamentary leader, on
August 27th, 1618, after a siege of nearly four months.
His life was spared, but his lands were sequestrated,
a third only being allowed to him for maintenance.
It was this Sir Henry who, with other owners of land
on Canvey Island, in 1621 had entered into an agree-
ment with the Dutch merchant, Joas Croppenburg,
of London, for the draining of the island.
Croppenburg received a third part of the land and the
actual work of draining and recovering the marshland
was carried out by skilled Dutch workmen, who had
considerable experience of similar work in their own
country, and who formed a settlement on the island,
the full story of which must be told elsewhere. It is
interesting to notice, however, that in 1650, when
an Inquisition was held at the Crown Inn, Ongar,
by order of Parliament, it was reported that in the
parish of Benfleet there was "an island inhabited
with Dutchmen, who provide a minister of their
owne Nation to preach unto them."
DUTCH WARS.
The friendly relations which had existed between
England and the Netherlands in the days of
Elizabeth were not continued in the time of Cromwell
and the later Stuarts, when England and the new
Dutch Republic were engaged in a bitter naval
rivalry In 1666, during the Second Dutch War,
the Dutch fleet, under De Ruyter, came into the
Thames and attacked the English shipping at
Sheerness and in the Medway. One squadron,
16