inal Richelieu and the king of France were for a time furious
in their displeasure; but interests of state overpowered individual
resentments, and no rupture took place.

Charles I. had now succeeded his father on the English throne.
He renewed the treaty with the republic, which furnished him
with twenty ships to assist his own formidable fleet in his war
against Spain. Frederick Henry had, soon after his succession
to the chief command, commenced an active course of martial
operations, and was successful in almost all his enterprises.
He took Groll and several other towns; and it was hoped that
his successes would have been pushed forward upon a wider field
of action against the imperial arms; but the States prudently
resolved to act on the defensive by land, choosing the sea for
the theatre of their more active operations. All the hopes of a
powerful confederation against the emperor and the king of Spain
seemed frustrated by the war which now broke out between France
and England. The states-general contrived by great prudence to
maintain a strict neutrality in this quarrel. They even succeeded
in mediating a peace between the rival powers, which was concluded
the following year; and in the meantime they obtained a more
astonishing and important series of triumphs against the Spanish
fleets than had yet been witnessed in naval conflicts.

The West India Company had confided the command of their fleet to
Peter Hein, a most intrepid and intelligent sailor, who proved his
own merits, and the sagacity of his employers on many occasions,
two of them of an extraordinary nature. In 1627, he defeated a
fleet of twenty-six vessels, with a much inferior force. In the
following year, he had the still more brilliant good fortune,
near Havana, in the island of Cuba, in an engagement with the
great Spanish armament, called the Money Fleet, to indicate the
immense wealth which it contained. The booty was safely carried
to Amsterdam, and the whole of the treasure, in money, precious
stones, indigo, etc., was estimated at the value of twelve million
florins. This was indeed a victory worth gaining, won almost
without bloodshed, and raising the republic far above the manifold
difficulties by which it had been embarrassed. Hein perished
in the following year, in a combat with some of the pirates of
Dunkirk--those terrible freebooters whose name was a watchword
of terror during the whole continuance of the war.

The year 1629 broug