apprehended from the machinations of certain foreign ecclesiastics residing near the sea-board, and recommending their immediate removal inland.[1]
But, before this, a descent had actually been made. On August 1st the French fleet had appeared off Dover, and had suddenly landed about fifteen thousand men, who had seized the town and burnt great part of it. The people had fled, but recovering their courage, and being reinforced, had attacked the invaders so vigorously as to kill five thousand of them and to put the rest to flight. Some had escaped to the ships, others had taken refuge in the fields, where they had been afterwards found and massacred. Thirty seamen had maintained themselves in the cloisters of the abbey until night, when they had got away in two boats, only. however, to be followed in the morning by two large craft and sunk. In the whole affray but fourteen Englishmen had lost their lives.
The repulse at Dover and the non-appearance of Turberville's signal disheartened the French, who returned to their ports and dispersed;[2] yet Turberville's treason was still undiscovered and might have gone unpunished but for the suspicions of a clerk, who delivered to Edward a letter which led to the conspiracy being laid bare, and to the culprit's execution.[3]
The retirement of the French opened the Channel to the operations of English cruisers. The ships of the Cinque Ports captured fifteen Spanish vessels full of merchandise, bound for Damme, and brought them into Sandwich; and some Yarmouth ships landed a force at Cherbourg, fired the town, robbed an abbey, and carried off an old priest.[4]
Instances of commissions having been granted to privateers as early as 1243 have been already cited. An undoubted example of the issue of regular Letters of Marque and Reprisals occurred in 1295. One, Bernard d'Ongressill, a merchant of Bayonne—then part of Edward's dominions—was the owner of a vessel—the St. Mary—belonging to that port, which, while on a passage from Barbary to England laden with almonds, raisins and figs, had been driven by stress of weather into Lagos, on the south coast of Portugal. At anchor there, she had been boarded by some armed Portuguese, who had robbed D'Ongressill and the crew and carried
