After the defence of the Irish seas was entrusted to Plumleigh and James, the Algerines found the Welsh or Cornish coasts safer for their purpose. But English pirates were not wanting, and Edward Christian, governor of the Isle of Man under Lord Derby, seems to have had an understanding with some of them. Wentworth's chief trouble was with privateers who issued from St. Sebastian with Spanish letters of marque or commissions against the Dutch, but who did not confine their depredations to them. Men were murdered in the Isle of Man, a French ship was boarded at sea, and honest traders of all nations were afraid to stir. There was always one squadron on the Irish coast, another returning, and another refitting. Dutch ships were seized in the Shannon, in the Liffey, and in Belfast Lough; a breach of the law of nations which the captains excused to their own crews by pretending a licence from the King of England to 'pull the Hollanders by the ears out of every port.' Wentworth, on the other hand, maintained that the whole of St. George's Channel 'being encompassed on every side with his Majesty's dominions, hath ever been held the chief of his harbours.' Nicolalde, the resident Spanish agent in London, not only gave commissions to buccaneers of English birth, but interceded for them when they became obnoxious to their own government. Wentworth had a bad opinion of Nicolalde, but he humoured him, and made proposals for trade between Ireland and Spain. The English Admiralty were induced to grant the Lord Deputy a vice-admiral's commission for Munster, while Plumleigh and James continued to scour the narrow seas. Thus by a mixture of force and diplomacy, piracy was put down for the time, and on August 15, 1637, Wentworth was able to announce to Coke that there was 'not so much as the rumour of Turk, St. Sebastian's men, or Dunkirker--the merchant inward and outwards secured and assured in his trade.'[188] FOOTNOTES: [173] Welwood's _Memoirs of the most Material Transactions, etc._, being short and well written, may have had a good deal to say to forming public opinion. There are a great many editions, and Lord Chatham praised the book. Wentworth to Conway, January 20, 1625-6 in State Papers, _Domestic_. Wentworth's letter to Sir Robert Askwith, December 7, 1620, is in _Camden Miscellany_, vol. ix. Other electioneering letters are in the _Strafford Letters_, i. 8-13. Hobbes says it is hard to judge motives, but that Wentworth's promotion was a sign of the King's weakness, 'for in a market where honour and power is to be bought with stubbornness, there will be a great many as able to buy as my Lord Strafford was' (_Behemoth_, part ii.)