ar is on the 21st of
November, 1644. "This day, for certain, news is come that Teddiman hath
brought in eighteen or twenty Dutchmen, merchants, their Bourdeaux
fleet, and two men-of-war to Portsmouth. And I had letters this
afternoon, that three are brought into the Downes and Dover; so that the
warr is begun: God give a good end to it!"

On the 31st of December he says: "My Lord Sandwich at sea with the fleet
at Portsmouth, sending some about to cruise for taking of ships, which
we have done to a great number."

On the 11th of January, 1665: "This evening, by a letter from Plymouth,
I hear that two of our ships, the _Leopard_ and another, in the
Straights, are lost by running aground; and that three more had like to
have been so, but got off, whereof Captain Allen one; and that a Dutch
fleet are gone thither; and if they should meet with our lame ships, God
knows what would become of them. This I reckon most sad news; God make
us sensible of it!"

The following remarks show the threatening attitude of the Dutch: on the
12th of January, 1665, "Spoke with a Frenchman, who was taken, but
released, by a Dutch man-of-war, of 36 guns (with seven more of the
king's or greater ships), off the North Foreland, by Margett. Which is
a strange attempt, that they should come to our teeth; but, the wind
being easterly, the wind that should bring our force from Portsmouth,
will carry them away home."

On the 15th he was called in, with Sir William Penn, to see the king,
"And there Sir W. Penn spoke pretty well to dissuade the king from
letting the Turkish ships go out; saying (in short), the king having
resolved to have 130 ships out by the spring, he must have above 20 of
them merchantmen. Towards which, he, in the whole river, could find but
12 or 14, and of them the five ships taken up by these merchants were a
part, and so could not be spared. That we should need 30,000 sailors to
man these 130 ships, and of them, in service, we have not above 16,000;
so that we shall need 14,000 more. That these ships will, with their
convoys, carry about 2000 men, and those the best men that could be got;
it being the men used to the southward that are the best men of warr,
though those bred in the north, among the colliers, are good for labour.
That it will not be safe for the merchants, nor honourable for the
king, to expose these rich ships with his convoy of six ships to go, it
not being enough to secure them against the Dutch, wh