270 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



turned to the Downs for revictualling, what remained of the 

 victuals on board being very bad, " the beef is so extremely 

 tainted," he had written on 21st July, "that when the shifter 

 stirs it, the scent over all the ship is enough to breed a con- 

 tagion." No sooner was he in the Downs than news came 

 that the French squadron had come back to the English coast, 

 twenty-six sail of them having been seen about the Lizard. 

 " They haunt us like a shadow," murmured the Admiral from 

 his anchorage, " flying when we pursue, and following when we 

 retreat." 



Lindsey was not far wrong on this occasion, for the with- 

 drawal of the French ships from the narrow seas on the ap- 

 proach of the English fleet was due to the sagacious plan of 

 Richelieu. He appears to have been well aware of the pretext 

 and design of Charles, and endeavoured to outwit him. At war 

 with Spain, he desired to avert an open rupture with England. 

 At the same time, it was not fitting that he should break the 

 tradition of France, or check the maritime ambitions which 

 aimed at rivalling England on the seas, by lowering the French 

 flag to the English Admiral. While the Earl was still at the 

 Isle of Wight, Richelieu ordered the French Admiral to retire 



o * 



with three of his smallest vessels round Cape Finisterre to 

 Belle Isle, off the coast of Brittany and well out of the Chan- 

 nel, and to put the rest of the French squadron under the 

 command of the Dutch Admiral. The French ships left in the 

 narrow seas were to carry no flags at all, and therefore could 

 not strike them ; and if the combined fleet met the English, the 

 Admiral of the States would, in his accustomed manner, strike, 

 without the dignity of France being compromised or Charles 

 being given the rebuff for which he was seeking. 1 When on 

 the following day Richelieu learned that the Spanish transports 

 for the relief of Dunkirk had entered that port, he ordered the 



1 Gardiner, op. cit., 385 ; State Papers, Dom., ccxcv. 61. The English agent in 

 France reported in August that two squadrons under French admirals, and bearing 

 the French flag, were to ply, one along the coast of France from Belle Isle to 

 Bayonne, the other at the mouth of the Channel. The remainder of the fleet, 

 half French and half Hollander (which guarded the coast up to Calais and to the 

 north of it), bore the States' colours, and were under the command of the Hol- 

 lander Admiral, "an expedient to avoid acknowledging his Majesty's right in the 

 Channel, in case this squadron should meet hia Majesty's fleet and be constrained 

 to vail the bonnet." 



