170 LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOUES [1646-7. 



Council offered you the 3000, and for the performance 

 thereof I am enforced to this journey, without which 

 against the prefixed time I could not have supplied 

 them with the money. Now to the latter part of your 

 letter, wherein you promise I should at large hear 

 farther from you, as upon Friday last ; but yet have 

 received.no other your commands, which I expected, 

 before I thought it necessary to answer yours of the 

 24th of March. But receiving no other your directions, 

 I think it opportune to let your Excellency know, that, 

 of three vessels which I sent for a convoy unto the 

 Prince, Sir Nicholas Crispe, and Mr. Hasendanke, the 

 merchant, I have but one return, Captain Allen being 

 taken and stript. And I hear a packet of your Excel 

 lency s, as well as letters, thrown overboard without 

 weight, were taken up ; which I look for shortly to 

 have in print.* 



&quot; By the sole return which came unto me, I received 

 notice from the Prince and those about him, in how ill 

 a condition he was enforced to retire into the Isle of 

 Scilly, where he now is ; and made use of Hasendanke s 

 frigates to transport himself, whereby I was not only 

 disappointed of what I hoped for by the Prince, but 

 also of his. 



&quot; Sir Nicholas Crispe indeed offers to send me three, 

 but they were not then with him, and he desires a 

 return from me first, so that only my Lord of Antrim s 

 frigates are come ; and a ship with 18 pieces of ordnance, 

 which is hourly expected, and bought by me at Galway. 

 Two Hollanders there are likewise at Waterford, and 

 two frigates likewise of Captain Antonio s, and the 

 Spanish agents, which carry ordnance. These are all 

 of force, and truly I conceive, might, for so short a cut, 

 be a sufficient convoy, were not Chester taken, the 

 Prince in so bad a condition, and some defeat of my 



* See page 124. 



