274 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



weeks, and the packages containing the king's letters opened. 1 

 A French man-of-war, too, had taken an English ship off Har- 

 wich and carried her off to Boulogne. Such occurrences, and 

 the presence of Van Dorp in the north, delayed Lindsey's 

 departure. But on 4th September he again left the Downs 

 with most of his ships, stood over to Calais and ranged the 

 French coast for some distance southwards, and then out to 

 sea. Heavy weather coming on, he had to run for shelter to 

 the Isle of Wight, where the fleet lay weather-bound, and with 

 much sickness on board, from the 12th till the 29th September. 

 The Admiral then made for the Downs, where he arrived on 

 4th October, and on the 8th he struck his flag. 2 



o 



Pennington was left with seven ships for the winter guard 

 of the narrow seas; and with "private" instructions from 

 the Earl not to suffer any breach of the peace to be done to 

 any of his Majesty's allies, nor to permit his sovereignty to 

 be infringed upon; to give convoys to merchants when they 

 wished it ; to clear his Majesty's seas of pirates, and to 

 compel the " due homage of the sea." Finally, he was to 

 assist the farmers of the customs, particularly in preventing 

 the smuggling of tobacco. 



It was a fitting close to the first ship-money fleet. The 

 great armada by which Charles expected to recover the Palat- 

 inate, and restore his sovereignty of the seas to its ancient style 

 and lustre, upon which the eyes of Europe had been fixed, 

 accomplished practically nothing. It had snatched a petty 

 prize from a Dunkirk privateer and seized a Dutch man-of- 

 war in reparation for the " contempt " at Scarborough ; it had 

 convoyed a few vessels, English and Spanish, to Dunkirk, and 

 as its greatest achievement had caused the blockade of that 

 port to be raised. No wonder that that tough sea-dog, Sir 

 John Pennington, when he heard that a still stronger fleet was 



1 State Papers, Dom., ccxcv. 44. 



2 The facts as to the movements, &c., of the fleet are mostly taken from the 

 Earl of Lindsey's Journal, written for the king's information, and preserved in the 

 Record Office. " A Relation of the passages that daily happened in this late 

 expedition under my conduct, being by Your Majesty's gratious appointment 

 Admiral and General of your Majesty's ffleet sett forthe for guard of your Narrow 

 Seas, from the time that the ships mett all together in the Downes, 28 May, untill 

 the 8* of October following, I making my first entrance aboard yor Royall ship 

 the Merhonor) 16 May, in Tilbury Hope." Ibid., ccxcix. 28. 



