CHARLES I. I THE NAVY 327 



assembled in the Downs in 1638, but it was not ready 

 to join. 



This fleet consisted of twenty-four king's ships and seven 

 merchant vessels, and, owing to the illness of the Earl of 

 Northumberland, it was placed under the command of Sir 

 John Pennington. 1 It did still less than the fleet of the 

 previous year. Two ships were sent to the westwards on an 

 alarm that " Turkish " pirates were in the Channel ; it con- 

 voyed two vessels laden with gunpowder into Dunkirk, not- 

 withstanding the blockade by the Dutch, and returned to the 

 Downs; and two ships were despatched to the north to in- 

 tercept supplies of arms and munitions of war from Rotterdam 

 and Bremen to the Scots. There was not even the " one turn 

 in an honourable procession " to the westwards as in the 

 previous year, and the fleet rode idly at its anchorage. 



The question of the " homage of the flag " had by this time 

 also fallen somewhat into the background. In the two pre- 

 ceding years it had been enforced with much zeal. In 1636, 

 when Northumberland's fleet was among the herring-busses, 

 Captain Carteret, in the Happy Entrance, forced a Spanish 

 fleet of twenty-six sail to strike to him off Calais, though they 

 tried their best to avoid it. A Dunkirker was also made to 

 strike and " lie by the lee " off Nieuport by Captain Slingsby. 

 But the French still refused to lower their flag when on the 



o 



other side of the Narrow Sea. Sir Henry Mervin, on meeting 

 two French men-of-war off Gravelines with their colours in 

 the main-top, tired some twenty shots at them without causing 

 them to strike. In the Mediterranean the French retaliated. 

 An English vessel on the coast of Barbary was forced to lower 

 its flag to French ships of war, and because the captain refused 

 to go on board them when requested, the ship was attacked 

 and captured. In the following year Captain Straddling of 

 the Dreadnought used drastic measures against some Hol- 

 lander merchant-ships. Falling in with four of them off the 

 Lizard, homeward bound from Brazil, with their flags abroad, 

 he commanded them to strike. One refused till many shots 

 were tired, excusing himself afterwards by saying he thought 

 the English ships were Dunkirkers. Straddling took him into 

 custody, and lodged him in Plymouth fort "to answer his 



1 State Papers, Dom., ccclxxx. 61 ; ccclxxxix. 86 ; cccxc. 39. 



