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 might have been done to subjects of Spain, she had even greater grounds for complaint, and that until her ships and subjects were released, and redress afforded for the wrongs they had sustained, she prohibited all importations of Spanish merchandise.

As it did not suit Philip any more than Elizabeth to go to war, he listened to the remonstrances of her ambassador; the English ships, and those of their crews who had survived the terrible sufferings of a Spanish prison, were released, and the commissioners commenced their inquiry at Bruges. But although all letters of marque expired on the declaration of peace with France, and the marauders had had to seek in many cases other fields for their depredations, Elizabeth, in this instance evidently meaning what she wrote, instructed Sir Peter Carew, then at Dartmouth, to fit out an expedition with speed and secresy, and clear the seas of any "pirates and rovers" which might still haunt the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, or who, with that taste for a lawless life which the nature of these commissions had engendered, lurked in the western rivers, or had their rendezvous among the numerous creeks on the shores of Ireland.

Elizabeth's efforts were, however, not crowned with success. The land-owners, who had too long been in league with the pirates, rendered every assistance to defeat Sir Peter Carew's attempts for their suppression At Berehaven, O'Sullivan Bere afforded them the protection of his castle, covering their vessels with its ordnance, and mustering a fleet of small craft and a sufficient number of men to bid defiance to