Note 25 — Chapter VIII

Clarendon State Papers, i. 109, et post. Five English ships out of twenty were to be at the charge of the King of Spain. Besides this agreement, according to which the English were only bound to protect the ships of Spain within their own seas, or the limits claimed as such, there were certain secret articles, signed Dec. 16, 1634; by one of which Charles bound himself, in case the Dutch should not make restitution of some Spanish vessels taken by them within the English seas, to satisfy the court of Spain himself out of ships and goods belonging to the Dutch; and by the second, to give secret instructions to the commanders of his ships, that when those of Spain and Flanders should encounter their enemies at open sea, far from his coasts and limits, they should assist them if over-matched, and should give the like help to the prizes which they should meet, taken by the Dutch, that they might be freed and set at liberty; taking some convenient pretext to justify it, that the Hollanders might not hold it an act of hostility. But no part of this treaty was to take effect till the Imperial ban upon the Elector Palatine should be removed. Id. 215.