been a thousand pities if her negotiation had
miscarried but she did not suffer this misfortune; for never were the
king's addresses so eager and passionate as after this peace, nor ever
better received by the fair Stewart.

His majesty did not long enjoy the sweets of a reconciliation, which
brought him into the best good humour possible, as we shall see. All
Europe was in a profound peace, since the treaty of the Pyrenees: Spain
flattered herself she should be able to recruit, by means of the new
alliance she had contracted with the most formidable of her neighbours;
but despaired of being able to support the shattered remains of a
declining monarchy, when she considered the age and infirmities of her
prince, or the weakness of his successor: France, on the contrary,
governed by a king indefatigable in business, young, vigilant, and
ambitious of glory, wanted nothing but inclination to aggrandize herself.

It was about this time, that the king of France, not willing to disturb
the tranquillity of Europe, was persuaded to alarm the coasts of Africa,
by an attempt, which, if it had even been crowned with success, would
have produced little good; but the king's fortune, ever faithful to his
glory, has since made it appear, by the miscarriage of the expedition of
Gigeri, that such projects only as were planned by himself were worthy of
his attention.

[Gigeri is about forty leagues from Algiers. Till the year 1664 the
French had a factory there; but then attempting to build a fort on
the sea-coast, to be a check upon the Arabs, they came down from the
mountains, beat the French out of Gigeri, and demolished their fort.
Sir Richard Fanshaw, in a letter to the deputy governor of Tangier,
dated 2nd December, 1664, N.S., says, "We have certain intelligence
that the French have lost Gigheria, with all they had there, and
their fleet come back, with the loss of one considerable ship upon
the rocks near Marseilles."--Fanshaw's Letters, vol. i. p. 347.]

A short time after, the king of England, having resolved also to explore
the African coasts, fitted out a squadron for an expedition to Guinea,
which was to be commanded by Prince Rupert. Those who, from their own
experience, had some knowledge of the country, related strange and
wonderful stories of the dangers attendant upon this expedition that they
would have to fight not only the inhabitants of Guinea, a hellish people,
whose arrows were poison