Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/160

140 that they should never see their own country again.

'This is the effect of this purpose serving to none other end but if such a wind should chance, this, I doubt not, would follow, if it shall like your Highness that we endeavour us to the same. Wherein neither in no other enterprise, being never so feasible, I will not attempt, your Majesty being so near, without first making your Majesty privy thereunto; and not without your Grace's consent thereunto; albeit that I would not, for mine own part, little pass to shed the best blood in my body to remove them out of your sight. But have your Grace no doubt of any hasty or unadvised presumptuous enterprise that I shall make, having charge of so weighty a matter under your Majesty, without being first well instructed from your Highness; for if I have any knowledge in any kind of thing, I have received the same from yourself. In the 'Harry Grace a Dieu,' 21st of July, at eight o'clock in the evening. Your Majesty's faithful servant to command, '.'

If Lisle's project had been executed, the mutilated action in the Solent would have been followed by an engagement which would have satisfied the most sanguinary expectations, and the question of the sovereignty of the Channel would have required no further settlement. The King consented to the risk. The night following the wind blew up from the