Note 487 — Chapter VII · CHARLES I.—continued. THE NAVY.

Gardiner, op. cit., 385; State Papers, Dom., ccxcv. 61. The English agent in France reported in August that two squadrons under French admirals, and bearing the French flag, were to ply, one along the coast of France from Belle Isle to Bayonne, the other at the mouth of the Channel. The remainder of the fleet, half French and half Hollander (which guarded the coast up to Calais and to the north of it), bore the States’ colours, and were under the command of the Hollander Admiral,—“an expedient to avoid acknowledging his Majesty’s right in the Channel, in case this squadron should meet his Majesty’s fleet and be constrained to vail the bonnet.”