Cary who was intrusted by the proprietors with the management of the
lawsuit for the Bonaventure, had resolved to accept of thirty thousand
pounds, which were offered him; but was hindered by Downing, who told
him that the claim was a matter of state between the two nations, not a
concern of private persons.[*] These circumstances give us no favorable
idea of the justice of the English pretensions.
* Temple, vol. ii, p. 42.
Charles confined not himself to memorials and remonstrances. Sir Robert
Holmes was secretly despatched with a squadron of twenty-two ships to
the coast of Africa. He not only expelled the Dutch from Cape Corse,
to which the English had some pretensions; he likewise seized the Dutch
settlements of Cape Verde and the Isle of Goree, together with several
ships trading on that coast. And having sailed to America, he possessed
himself of Nova Belgia, since called New York; a territory which James
I. had given by patent to the earl of Stirling, but which had never
been planted but by the Hollanders. When the states complained of these
hostile measures, the king, unwilling to avow what he could not well
justify, pretended to be totally ignorant of Holmes's enterprise.
He likewise confined that admiral to the Tower; but some time after
released him.
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