The states had consigned a sum of money, in case the cause should be decided against them; but the matter was still in dependence.
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.