Only a few weeks before the prince’s return the citizens had laid before the king a list of their grievances and prayed for redress.(568) They had complained of being charged taxes and talliages in excess of any other of the commons. They had lent the king at Dordrecht no less a sum than £60,000, and had incurred further loss by the discrepancy between the weight for weighing wool at Dordrecht and that of England. They had lent the king further sums of £5,000 and £2,000 on two separate occasions, which had not been repaid. The sum of £40,000 had been advanced to the king’s merchants at Calais and elsewhere, and this, together with other sums lent (amounting to over £30,000), was still outstanding to the grievous hurt of many citizens. They had, moreover, been called upon to undergo more charges than others with respect to the king’s expeditions to Scotland, Flanders and France, and in providing men-at-arms, archers and ships, in aid of his wars. Nor did their complaints stop here. The king’s purveyors had been accustomed to seize the carriages, victuals and merchandise of citizens without offering payment for the same, in direct contravention of the king’s first charter to the city. Owing, moreover, to deaths by the plague, so much property had come into mortmain that the city had become impoverished, and one-third part of it rendered void of inhabitants. These points they had desired the king to consider, inasmuch as the city had always been loyal and peaceful, setting an example to the whole country. The petition wound up with the usual complaint against the privileges allowed foreign merchants, and a request that the king would grant them letters patent under the great seal, such as they might show to the purveyors whenever they attempted to take anything without payment.(569) (M317) After the expiration of the truce Edward again set out for France. That country, however, had suffered so much during the last two years at the hands of freebooters, that Edward experienced the greatest difficulty in finding sufficient provisions for his army. Whilst he was traversing France in search of a force with which to try conclusions in the field, a Norman fleet swept down upon the south coast and sacked Winchelsea. The news of this disaster so incensed the king that he determined to march direct on Paris. The Londoners, in the meantime, assisted in fitting out a fleet of eighty vessels, manned with 14,000 men, including archers, in order to wipe out this disgrace, but the enemy contrived to make good their escape.(570) (M318)