It is however manifest from that document having been tested by the Prince of Wales, that it was rather a proclamation issued in consequence of the dispatch from the king to the prince, than the dispatch itself, of which the letter now for the first time printed may be deemed the only copy which is extant. Nor must it be forgotten that the date affixed to the article given by Avesbury tends to excite a suspicion of its authenticity; for it is tested by the prince at Waltham Holy Cross upon the precise day, the 28th of June, on which the king's letter was written, and which could not therefore possibly have arrived on the day in question at Waltham. It is somewhat singular that as the battle was concluded on the 25th of June, the king should not have written until the 28th; but this may perhaps be accounted for by those arrangements which his success would necessarily have required, and which may be supposed to have engaged the monarch's whole attention for some days. The letter in Avesbury's Annals gives no particulars of the battle, though that writer relates that the enemy were beaten; that more than thirty thousand of them were slain; that many leapt into the sea from fear and were drowned; and that their fleet consisted of two hundred large ships, on board of one of which four hundred dead bodies were found. The Royal dispatch, however, affords much more minute information, and corrects the statements both in Avesbury and in the preceding Chronicle. It asserts that the French fleet amounted to one hundred and eighty sail; that they were nobly defended the whole of a day and a night; that they were all captured in the engagement excepting twenty-four which took to flight, and part of them were subsequently taken at sea; that the number of the men at arms and other armed persons amounted to thirty-five thousand, of whom five thousand escaped; that the English ships captured by the French at Middleburgh were then retaken; and that among the prizes were three or four as large as 'the Christopher,' which we may infer was then the largest ship of the English navy. It is unquestionable from what has been said, that this document supplies some important facts in the history of the times, whilst its entry among the Records of the City of London tends to establish that the Mayor of the city was accustomed at that early period to receive an official account of every public transaction, and of which another example will be found in a subsequent page. The events which led to the battle of the Swyne, or as it is more generally termed of the Scluse, are too familiar to require repetition. "NOTA DE BELLO AQUATICO:-- L'RA D'NI E' DIRETT' FILIO SUO DUCI CORNUB' DE BELLO SUP' MARE P'CUSSO DIE NATIVIT' S'C'I JOH'IS BAPT'