THE NAVY AND THE STUARTS 



returned to England, when they were straightway ordered back and 

 there discovered that they were not to fight against the Genoese as had 

 been suggested but were to be used to put down the rebellious Huguenots 

 at La Rochelle. Eventually only one man in the fleet consented to 

 partake in such a service, but most of the ships were used. 



The Spanish Expedition. 



After the Penington fiasco Buckingham's taste for naval glory was 

 by no means satisfied and his new plan was an expedition against Spain. 

 Like most of Buckingham's whims it was expensive, but it must be said 

 to his credit that he was willing enough to advance £30,000 to the 

 empty Treasury against the cost. With twenty ships that the Dutch 

 promised to send, the armament consisted of over a hundred vessels in 

 all, most of them transports, under the supreme command of Viscount 

 Wimbledon, a soldier. His instructions were to destroy Spanish 

 shipping and tackle the Plate fleet if the opportunity arose, but unfortu- 

 nately he knew nothing whatever about naval matters and the expedition 

 was hopelessly bungled from the very beginning. Few of the captains 

 had very much stomach for fighting and the commander was so utterly 

 incapable that he sailed without giving his subordinates any rendezvous 

 or any previous instructions, so that ships that parted company had not 

 the least idea where to pick up the main body again. There was a 

 good deal of fighting at Cadiz, but every blunder imaginable was made 

 and such little triumph as we won was very dearly bought. No sooner 

 was the fleet homeward bound to the North than the Plate Armada 

 slipped in from the South in safety. 



Quarrel with France. 



In the same year, 1625, we began a quarrel with France where 

 there had been considerable ill-feeling over the Penington affair. The 

 illegal condemnation of prizes made things worse and the French 

 retorted by seizing the whole of the English wine fleet in French ports. 

 As Admiral of the Narrow Seas Penington was ordered in 1626 to 

 attack Le Havre and destroy the French fleet therein with a handful 

 of armed merchantmen, but the port was empty and the crews were 

 generally in a state of open mutiny over their pay. 



The ha Rochelle Expedition. 



Meanwhile the Duke of Buckingham was preparing an expedition 

 to sail to the relief of the Huguenots besieged in La Rochelle, although 

 lack of money was a great hindrance to the preparation of an effective 

 fleet. He himself went as Admiral in the Triumph but once again 

 things were mismanaged, for the authorities forgot the invariable 

 mediaeval precaution of detaining all foreign ships, with the result that 

 they allowed a Dutchman to sail from Plymouth just before the Fleet 

 and to give warning to the French in spite of the fact that a Dutch 

 squadron was with us. Thus the French had ample time to prepare 

 and things were made worse by Buckingham's obstinacy in refusing to 

 take any advice from the practical seamen, while to cap all the besieged 



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