Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/421

1549.] projects, and shut his eyes to the peril. The pirate fleet with which Seymour had been connected, amounted now to twenty well-armed vessels. The French Government gave them the use of their harbours, and the English traders were pillaged in revenge for the exploits of the privateers. When Flemish ships suffered also, the Emperor held the council in London responsible for the misconduct of its subjects, and the council were obliged to appeal to his forbearance and plead inability to put the pirates down. Seymour's conspiracy at the same time opened a prospect of creating confusion, by which the French might profit. The Paris Government believed that such an enterprise, if it was real, would not have been ventured, unless there had been some secret disaffection more considerable than had come to light; and agents were sent both to England and to Ireland, if possible, to excite a civil war.

The Emperor was struggling with the Interim and