There was above half of five hundred thousand pounds really paid as the queen's portion.
* D'Estrades, 21st of August, 12th of September, 1662.
The importance of this sale was not, at this time, sufficiently known, either abroad or at home.[*] The French monarch himself, so fond of acquisitions, and so good a judge of his own interests, thought that he had made a hard bargain;[**] and this sum, in appearance so small, was the utmost which he would allow his ambassador to offer.
* It appears, however, from many of D'Estrades's letters, particularly that of the 21st of August, 1661, that the king might have transferred Dunkirk to the parliament, who would not have refused to bear the charges of it, but were unwilling to give money to the king for that purpose.

The king, on the other hand, was jealous lest the parliament should acquire any separate dominion or authority in a branch of administration which seemed so little to belong to them; a proof that the government was not yet settled into that composure and mutual confidence which is absolutely requisite for conducting it.
* D'Estrades, 3d of October, 1662.

The chief importance, indeed, of Dunkirk to the English was, that it was able to distress their trade when in the hands of the French: but it was Lewis XIV.

who first made it a good seaport.

If ever England have occasion to transport armies to the continent, it must be in support of some ally whose towns serve to the same purpose as Dunkirk would, if in the hands of the English.
A new incident discovered such a glimpse of the king's character and principles as, at first, the nation was somewhat at a loss how to interpret, but such as subsequent events, by degrees, rendered sufficiently plain and manifest.