But such temporary despondency was drowned in work. Henrietta had too much to do, raising money, not only in Holland but in Denmark, sending arms and accoutrements into England, and keeping the Prince of Orange in a good temper, to have much time for low spirits. Towards the end of 1642 she had raised such sums of money as the amount of her resources and the caution of her customers permitted.[273] The state of affairs in England was not very promising, but nothing could keep her from her husband when she could be at his side with honour to herself and advantage to him. For danger she cared little, but various delays occurred, and it was not until the end of the following January, when she had been almost a year in the land where she had intended but a short stay, that she set sail for England. [Illustration: THE QUEEN'S DEPARTURE FROM HOLLAND FROM AN ENGRAVING] This attempted journey was one of the stormiest incidents of Henrietta's stormy career. Hardly had she set sail, accompanied by eleven vessels, when (by the agency of the devil, as some thought)[274] "the wind turned contrary, and the greatest storme that hath been seene this many a yeere"[275] arose. Nine days the Queen tossed upon the waves of the North Sea, lashed, as were all her ladies, into a narrow berth. The misery of the small, stuffy cabin was indescribable, and worse than bodily discomfort was the continual fear of death, which was so menacing that the Queen and the other Catholics on board, throwing aside their natural reticence on such matters, confessed their sins in a loud voice, which, perhaps, in the din of the storm, was necessary to the priest's hearing. It is said that the horror of the scene was so great that some of the sailors threw themselves into the sea. Henrietta believed that her last hour was come, and, as she confessed later, "a storm of nine days is a very frightful thing."[276] But the first alarm over, she reflected that after all there was little at present to make her cling to life, and she rallied her courage so effectually as to be able to derive amusement from the ridiculous incidents which never fail to occur on a storm-tossed vessel, while she reassured her terrified ladies by telling them that queens were never drowned.