allegiance, they would offer the handiest and most effective instrument for driving the Dutch themselves out of the Indies.[229] He privately told one captain, who brought in a Spanish prize, that he only stopped the Admiralty proceedings to "give a good relish to the Spaniard"; and that although the captor should have satisfaction, the governor could not guarantee him his ship. So Sir Thomas persuaded some merchants to buy the prize-goods and contributed one quarter of the money himself, with the understanding that he should receive nothing if the Spaniards came to claim their property.[230] A letter from Secretary Bennet, on 12th November 1664, confirmed the governor in this course;[231] and on 2nd February 1665, three weeks before the declaration of war against Holland, a warrant was issued to the Duke of York, High Admiral of England, to grant, through the colonial governors and vice-admirals, commissions of reprisal upon the ships and goods of the Dutch.[232] Modyford at once took advantage of this liberty. Some fourteen pirates, who in the beginning of February had been tried and condemned to death, were pardoned; and public declaration was made that commissions would be granted against the Hollanders. Before nightfall two commissions had been taken out, and all the rovers were making applications and planning how to seize Curacao.[233] Modyford drew up an elaborate design[234] for rooting out at one and the same time the Dutch settlements and the French buccaneers, and on 20th April he wrote that Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan had sailed with ten ships and some 500 men, chiefly "reformed prisoners," resolute fellows, and well armed with fusees and pistols.[235] Their plan was to fall upon the Dutch fleet trading at St. Kitts, capture St. Eustatius, Saba, and perhaps Curacao, and on the homeward voyage visit the French settlements on Hispaniola and Tortuga. "All this is prepared," he wrote, "by the honest privateer, at the old rate of no purchase no pay, and it will cost the king nothing considerable, some powder and mortar-pieces." On the same day, 20th April, Admiral de Ruyter, who had arrived in the Indies with a fleet of fourteen sail, attacked the forts and shipping at Barbadoes, but suffered considerable damage and retired after a few hours. At Montserrat and Nevis, however, he was more successful and captured sixteen merchant ships, after which he sailed for Virginia and New York.[236]