deliver it to him, and he would pay them for the freight of it. The lrussiaus refused an answer, and next day attacked the English who were still on board the hulks and killed many of them. Colville thereupon captured the hulks, and carried them into Southaupton and loole; and the merchants prayed that the prizes might not be restored until the case had been adjudicated upon by the Admiralty Court. An inquiry was ordered, but unhappily the result of it is not recorded. Under international law as now accepted, the tVrussian ships would be forfeited iu a like case in war time, for they violently repelled the searchers, who were acting under a duly commissioned authority; but nomiually a truce prevailed with France, to which country the cargo was suspected to belong, so that it is doubly regrettable that the decisin has not heen - preserved.

The truce was re-ratified in Iay, 1413; a yet so perilous were the Channel and the ]Bay of Biscay, owing to the depredations of French and other corsairs, that in August it was ordered that no vessels should proceed for wine to Guienne, unless in numhcrs sufficient to defend themselves? By the terms of a new truce with Spain, it was stipulated that no armed ship of either natiou should leave port without first giving security not to molest subjects and property of the other?

But Henry, to his honour, did much more than he could have effected by mere international agreement to put down piracy' and the infraction of truces. It was enacted in 1414 that all such proceedings should be accounted high treason?

In July of the same year the king foanally asserted his right to the crowu of France, and, although hostilities did not at once follow, orders were issued in September to the king's master-gunner and engineer to impress workmen; and the export of gunpowder was prohibited? Nev ships, including the Holy Ghost, the Grace Dic, and perhaps the T'iily, were 1;;id down, and the chancellor's speech at the opening of Iarliamcnt foreshadowed war. In the autumn, Patrick Coteroll and James Cornewalshe were appointed Admirals of Ireland for life. s

Parl. ]l.lls, iv. 12, 13. "' Federa,' ix. :';, 3:. s Ib., ix. 47. Ib., ix. 115. 2 Hen. V. c. 6. a ' Ftvdera,' ix. 159, 160. In July, 1414, 4 was paid on acctunt of the IIol!! GIlost, and in March, 1417, 500 ,n account of the Grace it Dieu, both building at. Sttthamlttn. The latter had been begun at he end ,f 1416, and w constructed by Robert Berd, in the Ilamblc.

"Pat. II,,]ls, 2 lien. V. m. 22.