e halting in their syntax, had kept steadily
to their point.

"You promised a general cessation of aims at our coming," said Dale, at a
conference on the 2/12 June, "and now ye have lingered five times twenty
days, and nothing done at all. The world may see the delays come of you
and not of us, and that ye are not so desirous of peace as ye pretend."

"But as far your invasion of England," stoutly observed the Earl of
Derby, "ye shall find it hot coming thither. England was never so ready
in any former age,--neither by sea nor by land; but we would show your
unreasonableness in proposing a cessation of arms by which ye would bind
her Majesty to forbear touching all the Low Countries, and yet leave
yourselves at liberty to invade England."

While they were thus disputing, Secretary Gamier rushed into the room,
looking very much frightened, and announced that Lord Henry Seymour's
fleet of thirty-two ships of war was riding off Gravelines, and that he
had sent two men on shore who were now waiting in the ante-chamber.

The men being accordingly admitted, handed letters to the English
commissioners from Lord Henry, in which he begged to be informed in what
terms they were standing, and whether they needed his assistance or
countenance in the cause in which they were engaged. The envoys found his
presence very "comfortable," as it showed the Spanish commissioners that
her Majesty was so well provided as to make a cessation of arms less
necessary to her than it was to the King. They therefore sent their
thanks to the Lord Admiral, begging him to cruise for a time off Dunkirk
and its neighbourhood, that both their enemies and their friends might
have a sight of the English ships.

Great was the panic all along the coast at this unexpected demonstration.
The King's commissioners got into their coaches, and drove down to the
coast to look at the fleet, and--so soon as they appeared--were received
with such a thundering cannonade an hour long, by way of salute, as to
convince them, in the opinion of the English envoys, that the Queen had
no cause to be afraid of any enemies afloat or ashore.

But these noisy arguments were not much more effective than the
interchange of diplomatic broadsides which they had for a moment
superseded. The day had gone by for blank cartridges and empty protocols.
Nevertheless Lord Henry's harmless thunder was answered, the next day, by
a "Quintuplication" in worse Latin than ever, presented to Dr