Note 503 — Chapter VII · CHARLES I.—continued. THE NAVY.

He reported, 16th September 1631, that two English merchantmen had met five French men-of-war, bearing the French king’s colours on the main-top, and the Malta colours on the poop, who saluted them with, “Amain, rogues, for the King of France”; but as the English ships refused to strike and prepared to fight, the French sheered off. He added that he had learned, through an interview between one of his lieutenants and one of the French commanders, that the latter had a commission to compel any English ships he could master to take in their flags and dowse their top-sails, and that three French admirals had been appointed for regaining the regality of the Narrow Seas, because, as the French officer said, the Pope had taken it from France and given it to England, but now that we had fallen from their religion it had been reassigned. State Papers, Dom., cxcix. 51.