The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution. Samuel Rawson Gardiner
the river of Thames; and there detained; whereupon there was an arrest at Newhaven, in the kingdom of France, on the seventh day of December last, of two English merchant ships trading thither, as was alledged in a certain petition by some English merchants trading into France, to the Lords and others of His Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council. After which, that is to say, on the 28th day of the said month, His Majesty was pleased to order, with the advice of his Privy Council, that the said ship and goods belonging to the subjects of the French king, should be re-delivered to such as should re-claim them; and accordingly information was given unto His Majesty’s Advocate, in the Chief Court of Admiralty, by the Right Honourable Sir John Coke, Knight, one of His Majesty’s principal secretaries of state, for the freeing and discharging of the said ship and goods in the said Court of Admiralty. And afterwards, that is to say on the six and twentieth day of January last, it was decreed in the said Court, by the judge thereof, with the consent of the said advocate, that the said ship with whatsoever goods as seized or taken in her (except three hundred Mexico hides, sixteen sacks of ginger, one box of gilt beads, and five sacks of ginger more, mentioned in the said decree), should be clearly released from further detention, and delivered to the said master; and therefore a commission under seal was in that behalf duly sent out of the said Court unto Sir Allen Apsley, Sir John Wolstenholme, and others, for the due execution thereof: the said Duke, notwithstanding the said order, commission and decree, detained still to his own use the said gold, silver, pearls, emeralds, jewels, monies, and commodities, so taken out of the said ship as aforesaid; and for his own singular avail and covetise, on the sixth day of February last, having no information of any new proof, without any legal proceedings, by colour of his said office, unjustly caused the ship and goods to be again arrested and detained in public violation and contempt of the laws and statutes of this land, to the great disturbance of trade, and prejudice of the merchant.
6. Whereas the honour, wealth and strength of this realm of England is much increased by the traffic chiefly of such merchants as employ and build great warlike ships, a consideration that should move all Councillors of State, especially the Lord Admiral, to cherish and maintain such merchants; the said Duke, abusing the Lords of the Parliament in the twenty-first year of the late King James, of famous memory, with pretence of serving the State, did oppress the East Indian merchants, and extorted from them ten thousand pounds, in the subtle and unlawful manner following:—About February, in the year aforesaid, he the said Duke, hearing some good success that those merchants had at Ormuz, in parts beyond the seas; by his agents, cunningly, in or about the month aforesaid, in the said year of the said King, endeavoured to draw from them some great sum of money; which their poverty and no gain by that success at Ormuz, made those merchants absolutely deny; whereupon he the said Duke, perceiving that the said merchants were then setting forth in the course of their trade, four ships and two pinnaces, laden with goods and merchandize of very great value, like to lose their voyage if they should not speedily depart; the said Duke, on the first day of March then following, in the said year of the said late King did move the Lords then assembled in the said Parliament, whether he should make stay of any ships which were in the ports (as being High Admiral he might); and namely those ships prepared for the East India voyage, which were of great burthen and well furnished; which motion being approved by their lordships, the Duke did stay those ships accordingly: But the fifth of March following, when the then deputy of that company, with other of those merchants, did make suit to the said Duke for the release of the said ships and pinnaces, he the said Duke said, he had not been the occasion of their staying; but that, having heard the motion with much earnestness in the Lords’ House of Parliament, he could do no less than give the order they had done; and therefore he willed them to set down the reasons of their suit, which he would acquaint the house withall; yet in the mean time he gave them leave to let their said ships and pinnaces down as low as Tilbury. And the tenth of March following, an unusual joint action was, by his procurement, entered in the chief Court of Admiralty, in the name of the said late King, and of the Lord Admiral, against fifteen thousand pounds, taken piratically by some captains of the said merchant ships, and pretended to be in the hands of the East India Company; and thereupon the King’s Advocate, in the name of advocate from the King and the said Lord Admiral, moved and obtained one attachment, which by the Sergeant of the said Court of Admiralty was served on the said merchants, in their court, the sixteenth day of March following: Whereupon the said merchants, though there was no cause for this their molestation by the Lord Admiral, yet the next day they were urged in the said Court of Admiralty to bring in the fifteen thousand pounds or go to prison; wherefore immediately the company of the said merchants did again send the deputy aforesaid and some others, to make new suit unto the said Duke, for the release of the said ships and pinnaces, who unjustly endeavouring to extort money from the said merchants protested that the ships should not go, except they compounded with him; and when they urged many more reasons for the release of the said ships and pinnaces, the answer of the said Duke was, that the then Parliament House must be first moved. The said merchants being in this perplexity in their consultation, the three and twentieth of that month, ever ready to give over that trade; yet, considering that they should lose more than was demanded, by unloading their ships, besides their voyage, they resolved to give the said Duke ten thousand pounds for his unjust demands; and he the said Duke by the undue means aforesaid, and under colour of his office and upon false pretence of rights, unjustly did exact and extort from them the said merchants, the said ten thousand pounds, and received the same about the twenty-eighth of April following the discharge of those ships; which were not released by him, till they the said merchants had yielded to give him the said Duke the said ten thousand pounds for the said release, and for the false pretence of rights made by the said Duke as aforesaid.
7. Whereas the ships of our Sovereign Lord the King and of his kingdoms aforesaid are the principal strength and defence of the said kingdoms and ought therefore to be always preserved, and safely kept, under the command, and for the service of our said Sovereign Lord the King, no less than any of the fortresses and castles of the said kingdoms; and whereas no subject of this realm ought to be dispossessed of any of his goods or chattels, without order of justice, or his own consent first duly had and obtained; the said Duke, being Great Admiral of England, Governor General and keeper of the said ships and seas, and thereof ought to have and take especial and continual care and diligence how to preserve the same; the said Duke, on or about the end of July last, in the first year of our Sovereign Lord the King, did, under the colour of the said office of Great Admiral of England, and by indirect and subtle means and practices, procure one of the principal ships of His Majesty’s navy royal, called the Vanguard, then under the command of Captain John Pennington, and six other merchant ships of great burthen and value, belonging to several persons inhabiting in London, the natural subjects of His Majesty, to be conveyed over, with all their ordnance, ammunition, tackle and apparel, into the ports of the kingdom of France, to the end that being there, they might be more easily put into the hands of the French king, his ministers and subjects, and taken into their possession, command and power; and accordingly the said Duke, by his ministers and agents with menaces and other ill means and practices, did there, without order of justice, and without the consent of the said masters and owners unduly compel and enforce the said masters and owners of the said six merchant ships to deliver their said ships into the said possession, command and power of the said French king, his ministers and subjects; and by reason of this compulsion, and under the pretext of his power as aforesaid, and by his indirect practices as aforesaid, the said ships aforesaid, as well the said ship royal of His Majesty, as the others belonging to the said merchants, were there delivered into the hands and command of the said French king his ministers and subjects, without either sufficient security or assurance for re-delivery, or other necessary condition in that behalf taken or propounded, either by the said Duke himself, or otherwise by his direction, contrary to the duty of the said offices of Great Admiral, Governor General and keeper of the said ships and seas, and to the faith and trust in that behalf reposed, and contrary to the duty which he owed our Sovereign Lord the King in his place of Privy Councillor, to the apparent weakening of the naval strength of this kingdom, to the great loss and prejudice of the said merchants, and against the liberty of those subjects of our Sovereign Lord the King that are under the jurisdiction of the Admiralty.
8. The said Duke, contrary to the purpose of our Sovereign Lord the King and His Majesty’s known zeal for the maintenance and advancement of the true religion established in the church of England,