CHARLES I. : THE NAVY 269 



answer the expectation they had of the fleet." "You must 

 command the seas or be commanded," said Coke in his pompous 

 vein. "Wisdom seeks not danger when with honour it may 

 be shunned; but where honour and dominion lie at stake, 

 brave men will set up their rests." 1 



All which, when he came to know of it, very naturally 

 nettled the Admiral. He had obtained the information about 

 the allied fleet on 9th June, three days after he left the Downs, 

 and he had gone in pursuit as speedily as the weather and 

 the heavy-sailing English vessels would allow. He was now 

 away at the Scilly Isles, but he failed to see any French ships, 

 and was duly honoured in the matter of the flag by the few 

 Dutch men-of-war encountered. He sent further despatches 

 from off the Lizard on 28th June, explaining his movements, 

 stating that his ship was leaking, grumbling again about the 

 want of a standard, "his commission making him equal to 

 a Lord High Admiral of England," &c., &c., and complaining 

 that his letters were not answered. Coke's letter awaited him 

 at Plymouth, and in reply to it he said, on 5th July, that he 

 neither deserved his scorn for a fall in a coach nor his blame 

 for negligence. Was it his fault that the French sought to 

 avoid him ? They had left the English seas, and they could 

 have done no more if he had fought with them; but if they 

 came again he should meet and fight them, time enough. Sir 

 Henry Vane had also written to Conway of the discontent 

 about the fleet. It was not well taken, he said, that they did 

 not put over to the coasts of Flanders, Holland, and France, 

 not indeed that they should go into the harbours and force 

 them to salute and strike, but to keep at sea upon these coasts 

 and act according to their instructions. 



Lindsey then stood to sea and plied about in the middle of 

 the Channel, off the coast between the Lizard and Plymouth, 

 and sometimes standing over to the coast of France, until the 

 beginning of August, without finding any trace of the French 

 and Dutch fleet, which was supposed and rightly to be to 

 the southward on the Biscay coast. No glimpse of the lilies of 

 France could be obtained; not even a pirate was seen, the 

 presence of the fleet no doubt having scared them from their 

 haunts in the Channel. On 3rd August Lindsey 's fleet re- 



1 State Papers, Dom. , ccxci. 58, 59. 



