But it was only maintained after a long contest at the Council Board at home, which contest seems to have been largely influenced by the fluctuations of Court favour from time to time. A despatch in February, written in behalf of CARLISLE, is followed in April by another despatch written in behalf of PEMBROKE and COURTEN. The one fact that becomes consistently evident throughout the proceedings is that grants of this kind were made in the loosest fashion, and often in entire ignorance even of the geographical positions of the countries given by them.[39] Indeed, the common course of procedure under the STUARTS, when a courtier had the happy thought of begging a territory in America, reminds one of those earlier days of the TUDORS, when a favoured suppliant sometimes obtained the grant of a monastery, or the lease of a broad episcopal estate, with hardly more trouble than it cost him to win a royal smile. To COURTEN and his colonists the issue of this quarrel about Barbadoes was very disastrous. To some of the latter it brought ruin. But to the founder himself a check to enterprise in one direction seems to have brought increased stimulus to new enterprise in another direction. He now embarked largely in adventures to the East Indies and to China. As usual, they were planned on a magnificent scale; excited great jealousy in the breasts of competitors; and were attended, in the long run, with very mixed results of good and ill. Meanwhile, Sir William’s growing wealth—greatly exaggerated by popular renown—and the conspicuous position into which his varied pursuits had brought him, led to plans of enterprise by others, and of quite another kind, at home. He had lost his first wife, and also his eldest son. He had married a second wife,—Hester TRYON, daughter of Peter TRYON. Only one son survived, but Sir William had three daughters, whose prospective charms attracted many suitors. In September, 1624, King JAMES wrote a characteristic letter in which he assured COURTEN that the son of Sir Robert FLEETWOOD, Lord of the Scottish barony of Newton, would make a fit match for one of the three daughters, and that the conclusion of such a match would be very acceptable to the King himself. [Sidenote: ALLIANCES BETWEEN THE CITY AND THE COURT.] [Sidenote: James I to Sir Willm. Courten; _Dom. Corr._, vol. clxxii, § 71.] The pretendant would gladly, and impartially, wed any one of the three ladies, but the King himself, continues the royal letter, ‘will regard, as a favour, any increase of portion given to the daughter whom FLEETWOOD may marry, over and above the portion given to, or intended for, the other daughters.’