ry carefully,
declaring it to be her intention that there should be no delays
interposed in the conduct of this affair by forms of special pleading,
but that speedy cognizance should be taken of the whole, and that the
property should forthwith be restored.

She then sent for Sir Robert Cecil, whom she directed to go at once and
tell his father, the Lord Treasurer, that he was to assist Caron in this
affair exactly as if it were her own. It was her intention, she said,
that her people were in no wise to trouble the Hollanders in legitimate
mercantile pursuits. She added that it was not enough for her people to
say that they had only been seizing Spaniards' goods and money, but she
meant that they should prove it, too, or else they should swing for it.

Caron assured her Majesty that he had no other commission from his
masters than to ask for justice, and that he had no instructions to claim
Spanish property or enemy's goods. He had brought sufficient evidence
with him, he said, to give her Majesty entire satisfaction.

It is not necessary to pursue the subject any farther. The great nobles
still endeavoured to interpose delays, and urged the propriety of taking
the case before the common courts of law. Carom strong in the support of
the queen, insisted that it should be settled, as her Majesty had
commanded, by the council, and it was finally arranged that the judge of
admiralty should examine the evidence on both sides, and then communicate
the documents at once to the Lord Treasurer. Meantime the money was to be
deposited with certain aldermen of London, and the accused parties kept
in prison. The ultimate decision was then to be made by the council, "not
by form of process but by commission thereto ordained." In the course of
the many interviews which followed between the Dutch envoy and the privy
counsellors, the Lord Admiral stated that an English merchant residing in
the Netherlands had sent to offer him a present of two thousand pounds
sterling, in case the affair should be decided against the Hollanders. He
communicated the name of the individual to Caron, under seal of secrecy,
and reminded the Lord Treasurer that he too had seen the letter of the
Englishman. Lord Burghley observed that he remembered the fact that
certain letters had been communicated to him by the Lord Admiral, but
that he did not know from whence they came, nor anything about the person
of the writer.

The case of the plundered merchants w