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 compliance with her undertaking. Vessels, however, carrying foreign merchants and others from Dover to Wissant, or elsewhere, and fishing boats, when employed for fishing, were exempted. On the same occasion, the king's great ship and several other vessels were fitted out, the great ship herself being placed under the command of Friar Thomas of the Temple, to whom the masters of that ship, as well as those of the galleys, were enjoined to pay implicit obedience. On February 20th, all the great ships which were at Southampton were ordered to Portsmouth; but all fishing vessels having but twelve oars or less were to be allowed to fish or to go whither they pleased. In March, seven of the ships at Portsmouth were assigned to the Earl of Salisbury for the conveyance of his horses and equipage to Gascony; and all the great merchant ships were sent from Shoreham to Portsmouth for the expedition. In December, the keepers of the ports were enjoined not to permit ships to sail for any place in France; and they were soon afterwards further commanded not to allow any ship to leave a port at all without the king's special orders, and to cause all persons belonging to the ports to hold themselves ready to proceed on the king's service. It was at about this time that the king's "great ship" captured a Portuguese vessel called the Cardinal, on her passage from some place in Gascony. The cause of her capture is not known, but it may be supposed to have been connected with some breach of blockade regulations.

It is remarkable that, upon its being represented to the king that six scholars taken in the ship had received from their relatives money for their support while on hoard, he ordered that out of the merchandise captured a sum of forty marks should be paid to the scholars. This is an early example of respect being conceded to private property taken at sea.

In 1226, when the French appear to have done much as they pleased in the Channel, there were rumours of a projected invasion, and an aid was urgently demanded from the people. In March, Savery de Maloleone, a French baron, and others, were reported to