Accordingly he himself changed to the foremost vessel, taking with him his own standard, and there waited for the rest of the armament to come up, which they presently did, and formed into one body, sixteen ships square, only a league at each side, from either shore, and when they were drawn up, the Prince, from that ship which was nearest the English coast, signalled that the two famous forts of Calais and Dover were to be saluted, which was done at the same moment with great thunder of the deep-mouthed artillery, which was an astonishing spectacle that there should be in Dover Straits a fleet so huge that it could salute these two forts at the same time and be but a league from either. There was something awful in the sound of this warlike courtesy, to the ears of both nations, and some awe and terror mingled with their admiration as the smoke obscured the green dancing waves. From Dover Castle there was no reply, the doubt of England being expressed in this silence; but from Calais came a proud answering salute as from a mighty foe who honours himself by the formalities of respect to his adversary, and the Prince standing on the upper deck amid the slow-clearing gunpowder vapour flushed to hear again the French guns who had last spoken to him among the heights of St. Denis, ten years ago. At the council of war now held it was decided that the disposition of the fleet should be changed, for news had come that the English, who lay at the Gunfleet, were making full endeavours to overtake and fight the Dutch, for though Lord Dartmouth knew that half his officers were pledged to the Prince, and his men very doubtful of engaging in the cause of the King, yet he resolved to use his utmost powers to prevent the landing of His Highness, for he was under personal obligations to James, who had always treated him more as a friend than a subject, and was filled with an honourable desire to serve His Majesty in this crisis. The Prince, knowing this from my Lord Grafton, was eager to avoid a conflict, for however well disposed the English sailors might be to his religion and person, he wisely suspected that a nation so proud, and in particular so jealous of their prestige on the sea, would, when faced in order of battle with those people whom they had so often and so recently fought, forget everything save the desire to achieve a victory over that Republic which alone disputed with them the over-lordship of the ocean. For this reason His Highness had given Admiral Herbert the command of his armament, that the English might salve their arrogance by the thought that an Englishman led this invading force; yet he secretly believed that the names of Herbert and Russell would not prove so potent a motive for peace, as the sight of the foreign flags, jacks, and haughty ships would prove an incentive to rage in the bosoms of the British, who could endure, it seemed, any hardship but the idea of foreign dominion.