All his military operations showed equal incapacity and inexperience.
Instead of attacking Oleron, a fertile island, and defenceless, he bent
his course to the Isle of Rhe, which was well garrisoned and fortified:
having landed his men, though with some loss, he followed not the blow,
but allowed Toiras, the French governor, five days' respite, during
which St. Martin was victualled and provided for a siege.[**]

* Rushworth, vol i. p. 426.

** Whitlocke, p. 8. Sir Philip Warwick, p. 25.

He left behind him the small fort of Prie, which could at first have
made no manner of resistance: though resolved to starve St. Martin, he
guarded the sea negligently, and allowed provisions and ammunition to
be thrown into it: despairing to reduce it by famine, he attacked it
without having made any breach, and rashly threw away the lives of
the soldiers: having found that a French army had stolen over in small
divisions, and had landed at Prie, the fort which he had at first
overlooked, he began to think of a retreat; but made it so unskilfully,
that it was equivalent to a total rout; he was the last of the army that
embarked; and he returned to England, having lost two thirds of his
land forces; totally discredited both as an admiral and a general; and
bringing no praise with him, but the vulgar one of courage and personal
bravery.

The duke of Rohan, who had taken arms as soon as Buckingham appeared
upon the coast, discovered the dangerous spirit of the sect, without
being able to do any mischief; the inhabitants of Rochelle, who had at
last been induced to join the English, hastened the vengeance of their
master, exhausted their provisions in supplying their allies, and were
threatened with an immediate siege. Such were the fruits of Buckingham's
expedition against France.

CHAPTER LI.

CHARLES I.

{1628.} There was reason to apprehend some disorder or insurrection
from the discontents which prevailed among the people in England.
Their liberties, they believed, were ravished from them; illegal taxes
extorted; their commerce which had met with a severe check from the
Spanish, was totally annihilated by the French war; those military
honors transmitted to them from their ancestors, had received a grievous
stain by two unsuccessful and ill-conducted expeditions; scarce an
illustrious family but mourned, from the last of them, the loss of a
son or brother; greater calamities were dreaded from the war