While the main fleets were getting ready at home, hostilities were being pursued abroad. The fleet in the Straits, meaning what we should now call the Mediterranean Squadron, was under the command of Captain Thomas Allen, an old Royalist seaman who had served with Prince Rupert. Allen had succeeded Lawson in command of the force appointed to protect our Levant trade against the Algerine pirates. In this work he had had some success, having on one occasion captured no less than five pirate cruisers. But the approach of war with Holland called him off from this duty. He withdrew from the centre of the Mediterranean and stationed himself in the Straits. Here he lay in wait for the Dutch. Allen's orders were as contradictory as was to be expected, considering that they were given by a Government which wanted to enjoy the incompatible advantages of making war on another, and yet of not declaring itself in open hostility. He was told that he might attack the Dutch men-of-war, or the Smyrna fleet, but not such of their vessels as came past in twos and threes. The meaning of the distinction is not very obvious. Allen also complained that he was not allowed to attack the Dutch in Spanish ports, which throws a light on the opinion entertained by naval officers of the time as to what constituted neutrality. His operations were not at first very successful. While pursuing what he calls a Dutch fleet, and what was no doubt a convoy of merchant ships, he ran several of his squadron of nine ships on shore, where two of them were totally lost. The others were got off, and on the 19th December 1664 Allen was consoled for this misfortune. He fell in with the Dutch Smyrna convoy proceeding home under protection of three men-of-war. It consisted of fourteen sail in all. Allen at once attacked with his remaining seven vessels, sunk two of the Dutch, and captured two of the others. One of the two prizes was a rich vessel from Smyrna. The Dutch vessels which escaped destruction or capture fled into Cadiz. This operation in the later stages of our history would have attracted little or no attention, but it passed at that time for a considerable achievement, and was even, for the greater glory of the nation, very much exaggerated. The fourteen Dutch vessels were swollen out to forty. We were not, in truth, so honestly persuaded of our superiority to the Dutch that we could afford to make light of any success gained against them, or to abstain, it may be added, from mere vulgar boasting.