Yet he was found agreeing with, if not promoting, a petition from the fleet in favour of the Restoration, and he co-operated with Monk. When the king's Government was established, some of the Royalists were disposed to visit Lawson's earlier sins upon him, but he and the other experienced seamen of the Commonwealth were too useful to the Crown to be dispensed with. King Charles II., with characteristic wit, described them as men who having had the pest already and been cured of it, were therefore the less likely to be infected again. The high praise given by Clarendon to the character of Lawson shows that, in the opinion of a thorough Cavalier, the Anabaptist seaman had accepted the monarchy without reserve. There was much work for the king's sea officers to do. It was impossible, to begin with, for the restored monarchy to neglect the work of protecting commerce in the Mediterranean, and the navy was hardly established on its new footing under the Duke of York before a naval force was despatched against the Barbary pirates. The latter part of 1660 and the whole of 1661 had been spent in the work of settling the new Government. Parliament had to vote money for the payment of arrears, and it was indeed impossible for the new rulers to take all in hand very speedily. So soon, however, as Parliament had supplied necessary funds, and as the work of new modelling the list of officers--that is, of removing all who were too Puritan, and re-establishing as many Royalists as it was safe to employ--had been completed, a squadron was sent abroad, under the command of Montagu, now created Earl of Sandwich, with Lawson as second. It had a double duty to perform. The first part of its work was to chastise the Barbary pirates, who had recovered from the scare caused by Blake's attack on Tunis, and were again engaged in searching and plundering English ships in the Mediterranean. Then the fleet had to bring home the king's wife, Catharine of Braganza, after taking possession of the post on the coast of Africa ceded as part of her dower.