heard that Captain
Pennington's ships had been delivered up to the French and employed
against Rochelle, and demanded their immediate restitution. The French
king excused himself on the pretence that his subjects, by whom they
were manned, would not now quit them; on which, to appease the people,
the Duke of Buckingham issued commissions of reprisal. The _Saint
Peter_, of Havre-de-Grace, and other French vessels were on this
captured. Hearing of this proceeding, the French king not only
absolutely refused to restore the seven ships, but seized on all the
English merchants' property throughout his dominions. To carry on the
war with Spain a powerful fleet of eighty English and Dutch ships was
fitted out under the command of Cecil, afterwards created Viscount
Wimbleton. Ten regiments were embarked on board the fleet, under the
Earls of Essex and Denbigh. They proceeded to Cadiz, when the troops,
having broken into the wine-stores, became so excessively intoxicated,
that had the enemy set on them they must have been put to the sword.
The officers hastened, therefore, their re-embarkation, and the
expedition returned without having effected anything.

In 1627 three expeditions were undertaken, professedly to assist the
people of Rochelle, but, being badly managed, possibly through
treachery, they all failed. It was while fitting out one of these
fleets that the Duke of Buckingham, then Lord High Admiral, was murdered
by Felton.

A severe action was fought near Ormuz, in the Gulf of Persia, between
four English ships, under the command of Captain John Weddell, and four
Dutch ships, with eight Portuguese galleons and thirty-two frigates. On
hearing of the approach of the enemy, the English captain told his Dutch
allies that he had resolved, for the glory of God, the honour of his
nation, the profit of the worthy employers, and the safeguard of their
lives, ships, and goods, to fight it out as long as a man was living in
his ship to bear a sword. To whom the Dutchmen answered that they were
of a like resolution, and would stick as close to the English as the
shirts to their backs; and so in friendly manner each took leave for
that night. The Dutch the next morning were the first to get into
action. Friends and foes were now within musket-shot of each other,
when it fell a calm, and the ships of the allies could not work but as
the tide set them. When the Portuguese were aboard and aboard, they had
a great advanta