Buckingham then drew up a plan of assault, as well as of defence, in order to lower the pride of the enemy. A company was, he proposed, to be incorporated for the West, as well as for the East Indies. A fleet, consisting of two ships of the line, eighteen ships and two pinnaces of the merchant-adventurers, was to be equipped, and to this force were to be added twenty Newcastle ships, for the nautical skill and gallant characteristics of the collier crews were wisely resorted to in this emergency by the Lord Admiral. To meet the expenses of the fleet, a general subscription of all estates of men was proposed. The nobility were each to contribute a hundred pounds; the gentlemen and yeomen were to be taxed to a certain amount; cities and corporate bodies were to give a sum of twenty-four thousand pounds. The merchants and the East India Company were not to escape the general infliction. Thus, to man and to furnish the first great fleet that England had sent forth, was the principle of arbitrary taxation commenced in this country. At the same time, with the fear of Spanish Armadas, of conquest, torture, and slavery, acting upon the public mind, efforts to restore the national defences on shore were promptly carried on. In those days, pirates infested the narrow seas; and all the seaport towns were taxed, in order to support a sort of coast-guard to keep off these troublesome visitors. But every usage which could ensure public safety had been neglected. Our national defences had fallen into decay simultaneously with our navy. The correspondence between Buckingham and his agents in different ports exists in the State Paper Office, and affords a mournful picture of forts neglected and in ruins. Shoals, and sands, and points, fatal even to the most experienced mariners, were the snare and gulf of many a vessel, and not a single light-house had been erected to warn the navigator of his danger. The office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, which, in part of the reign of James the First, devolved on Lord Zouch, had been conducted with scarcely more zeal and honesty than the post of Lord High Admiral by the Earl of Nottingham. Until the stirring exertions of the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham were directed both to the augmentation of the naval armaments and to their preservation from risks, the Goodwin Sands were without a light-house; and a project for erecting one upon that dangerous passage was first suggested to Buckingham by Sir Thomas Wildrake, and subsequently adopted by the Duke, whose efforts to guard the narrow seas, and to clear them of pirates, are beyond all praise, when we consider the supineness of his predecessors in office. It was not until 1619 that a light was placed upon the Lizard Point, which had already been fatal to the Dutch merchants, who had lost, in the course of one year, a hundred thousand pounds by shipwrecks.