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268 Ushant, watching for the wine fleet from Bordeaux professedly, but picking up gratefully whatever the gods might send. No less a person than the Mayor of Dover himself was the owner of one of these sea-hawks. Wretched Spaniards flying from their talons were dashed to pieces upon the granite cliffs of Finisterre.

At length the remonstrances of foreign ambassadors took effect, and Elizabeth disowned Stucley, and took measures for his apprehension. Some ships were sent out with this object, and he was caught in Cork harbour, in 1565, put under arrest, and sent to London, where he was consigned to the Tower.

Stucley was all the while playing a double game. While professing loyalty to the Queen he was in correspondence with Philip of Spain. Shan O'Neil proposed to Elizabeth that she should divide all Ireland between himself and Stucley, when they would make of it a paradise. Stucley had purchased a good deal of land in Cork, and he hoped to have more granted him and to share with St. Leger and Carew in the partition of Munster. He had a plausible tongue, put on an air of great frankness, and soon obtained his release, and was actually sent back to Ireland with a letter of recommendation from Cecil. There he bought of Sir Nicholas Bagnal for £300 down his office of Marshal of Ireland and all Bagnal's estate in the island. Elizabeth, however, refused to sanction the transaction; she mistrusted him, and with reason, for he was engaged in constant treasonable correspondence with the Spanish Ambassador, and he was in receipt of a pension from Philip. She heard reports of murders, robberies, and other outrages committed by him, and ordered him back to England. He obeyed, cleared himself, and in 1567 was allowed to return to Ireland, where he purchased of Sir Nicholas