Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/136



English privateers, however, licensed by the Crown, still swarmed in the Channel, and though limited by their commissions to make war only on acknowledged enemies, were unwilling to be restricted to less lucrative game. Flemings and Spaniards, if laden with valuable cargoes, were still too frequently the objects of their plunder, under the pretext that as neutrals they had articles on board which the government of England held to be contraband of war.

Among these lawless rovers were to be found the the mayor of Dover, and other leading inhabitants, who, not satisfied with the capture, in a few months of the summer of 1563, of from six to seven hundred French prizes, appear to have plundered many neutral vessels, sixty-one of which were Spanish, for the most part laden with very valuable cargoes. Nor were the depredations of these pirates confined to the capture of neutrals. Their own countrymen were

Pié de Pálo ("Timber leg"), sailed from Havre, and captured a Portuguese vessel worth forty thousand ducats, as well as a Biscayan ship laden with iron and wool, and afterwards chased another "Papist" ship into Falmouth, where he fired into her and drove her on shore. The captain of the Spaniard appealed for protection to the governor of Pendennis, but the governor replied that the privateer was properly commissioned, and that without special orders from the Queen he could not interfere. Pié de Pálo then took possession of her as a prize, and afterwards anchored under the shelter of Pendennis, waiting for further good fortune. As it was the depth of winter, and the weather being unsettled, five Portuguese ships, a few days later, were driven in for shelter. Ascertaining the insecurity of their position, they attempted to escape to sea again, but Pié de Pálo dashed after them and seized two out of the five, which he brought back as prizes.—Froude, vol. viii. pp. 450, 451.]
 * [Footnote: piratical rovers, commanded by Jacques le Clerc, called by the Spaniards