OBSERVATIONS ON A LIBEL. 417 



vigour wherein the league then was, while the duke 

 of Guise then lived ; and yet nevertheless this great 

 preparation passed away like a dream. The in 

 vincible navy neither took any one barque of ours, 

 neither yet once offered to land ; but after they had 

 been well beaten and chased, made a perambulation 

 about the northern seas ; ennobling many coasts 

 with wrecks of mighty ships ; and so returned home 

 with greater derision than they set forth with eX- 

 pectation. 



So as we shall not need much confederacies and 

 succours, which he saith we want for breaking of the 

 Spanish invasion, no, though the Spaniard should 

 nestle in Britain, and supplant the French, and get 

 some port-towns into their hands there, which is yet 

 far off, yet shall he never be so commodiously seated 

 to annoy us, as if he had kept the Low-countries : 

 and we shall rather fear him as a wrangling neigh 

 bour, that may trespass now and then upon some 

 straggling ships of ours, than as an invader. And 

 as for our confederacies, God hath given us both 

 means and minds to tender and relieve the states of 

 others ; and therefore our confederacies are rather of 

 honour than such as we depend upon. And yet 

 nevertheless the Apostatas and Huguenots of France 

 on the one part, for so he termeth the whole nobility 

 in a manner of France, among the which a great 

 part is of his own religion ; which maintain the clear 

 and unblemished title of their lawful and natural 

 king against the seditious populace, and the beer- 

 brewers and basket-makers of Holland and Zealand, 



VOL. v. E E 



