Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/520

500 was concluded. The commissioners met, and the French came at once to the point. The English asked for the pension. The French, 'precise and imperious,' asked in return if they thought 'France would be tributary to England.' For the debts, they had been made to spend more in the wars than the debts amounted to, and they held themselves acquitted. 'Pensions they will pay none,' the English commissioners reported, 'nor debts none, nor reason will they have none. They have prescribed, as it were, laws, which they call overtures, that we should make white and relinquish old matters, as well pensions, debts, arrearages, and other quarrels, for which and for Boulogne they say they will give a reasonable recompense in money.'

Paget, in a private letter to Warwick, explained distinctly that the tone which the French had assumed arose from no desire to protract the war: they knew merely that Boulogne was in their power, and they intended to exact the conditions which their strength enabled them to impose.

'These Frenchmen,' he wrote, 'ye see how lofty they be, and haultaine in all their proceedings with us. And no marvel, for so they be of nature; and our estate, which cannot be hidden from them, encreaseth their courage not a little. They will have Boulogne, they say, by fair means or by foul. They will no longer be tributaries, as they term it. They set forth the power of their King, and make of ours as little as they list,