Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/39

 well as Sir John, was busily employed in the same preventive work. On the 10th of August of that same year, 1537, he wrote to Cromwell that he had at Harwich arrested a couple of Frenchmen who two years previously had robbed a poor English skipper's craft off the coast of Normandy, and this Englishman had in vain sued in France for a remedy, since the pirates could never be captured. But there were so many of these corsairs being now taken that it was a grave problem as to how they should be dealt with. "If they were all committed to ward," wrote Sir Thomas, "as your letters direct, they would fill the gaol." Then he adds: "They would fain go and leave the ship behind them, which only contains ordnance, and no goods or victuals to find themselves with. If they go to gaol, they are like to perish of hunger, for Englishmen will do no charity to them. They are as proud naves as I have talked with."

Eleven days later came the report from Sir John Dudley of his experiences in the Channel. He stated that while on his way home he encountered a couple of Breton ships in the vicinity of St. Helen's, Isle of Wight, where he believed they were lying in wait for two Cornish ships "that were within Porchemouthe haven, laden with tin to the value of £3000." Portsmouth is, of course, just opposite St. Helen's, and on more than one occasion in naval history was the latter found a convenient anchorage by hostile ships waiting for English craft to issue forth from the mainland. But when these Breton pirates espied Dudley's ships coming along under sail, they "made in with Porchemouthe," where Dudley's men promptly boarded them and placed them under arrest, with the intention of bringing them presently to the Thames. Dudley had no doubt whatever that these were pirates, but at a later date the French ambassador endeavoured to show that there was no foundation for such