That was Federigo Spinola, a noble patrician from Genoa, an enterprising son of that rich republic's most famous family, who had entered into a contract with the King of Spain, Philip the Third, to prepare a fleet for the service of His Catholic Majesty to be used against the Dutch rebels and to sail it into the North Sea. All booty and all the ships captured from the heretics became the property of Admiral Spinola and so he went with an impressive array of galleys and galleons, manned with sixteen hundred bold sailors, out of Genoa, went through the Straits of Gibraltar, rounded Cape Saint Vincent, was joined by a large number of audacious Viscayan pirates and privateers in the Bay of Biscay and later by a large number of Dunkirk freebooters and appeared on 11 September 1599 in the port of Sluys, where he dropped anchor and from where he commenced his activities in the North Sea. The waters of the North Sea were for the first time furrowed by those Roman galleys which had only been used hitherto by those who lived on the shores of the Mediterranean. And so it came about that, at first, even the intrepid and fearless fisherfolk of Zeeland felt the fear engendered by the unfamiliar when confronted by these Italian galleys that struck the waves like the hundred-oar feet of giant water-beetles. Thus, in the beginning, Federigo Spinola did a roaring trade and won many a richly laden merchantman and many a poor fishing boat from the Dutch until the initial shock experienced by the latter had worn off and they dared more boldly to get to grips with their new enemies. The States General sent a sizeable squadron and, in the heat of battle, not only were a large number of enemy privateers annihilated, but they even went as far as to capture one of the terrible galleys. This remarkable vessel was brought in triumph back to Amsterdam and here something similar was built along the same lines and manned with the bravest hearts and hands. It was of a threateningly black colour and the newly painted black galley was soon scaring the Spaniards and Admiral Federigo Spinola out of their wits. The speculative venture of the Genoan bore from then on no longer such good fruit as it had done at first. So the black galley was no ghost ship, no spectral apparition, but a thing of wood and iron, and neither was its crew a phantom crew. Beings of flesh and blood clambered aloft in the rigging, set the sails, loaded the blunderbusses and boarded enemy ships with the blood-curdling cry: "Sultan before Pope!" People were talking about the black galley on the squares and in the alleyways of Antwerp and everyone wanted to know more about the rumour that the splendid trireme, the Immaculate Conception, had been scuttled and blown up the previous night by men of Zeeland.