In the answer which he afterwards addressed to Parliament, the Duke denied having lent the ship called the “Vanguard,” and six others, to the King of France--knowing that they were intended to be employed against Rochelle; he stated that he had been overreached, as the French King had pretended that he wished to make an attack on Genoa; that, so soon as he was aware of the deception, he did all he could to save Rochelle from destruction.[303] It appeared, also, that a promise had been made by James I. to lend a ship to Louis XIII., for the reduction of Genoa. The charge of neglecting his duty as Admiral, and of having suffered the coast to be infested with pirates, has been met by those statements in a former chapter, drawn from original sources, which plainly show that the energy of this ill-fated Minister was untiring, his efforts meritorious, and that, whatever had been his former errors, they had been retrieved in his management of naval affairs. So active were his habits, that he took a personal share in every affair.[304] From the accusation of corruption, it would be as difficult to defend the Duke, as it was to exculpate, in this grave point, many public men in office at that period. The House of Commons was still writhing under the remembrance of the affair of Lord Middlesex, Lord Treasurer in the time of James I., who had taken two bribes, of five hundred pounds each, from the farmers of customs, without which _douceur_ he refused to sign their warrants.[305] For that offence, Middlesex had been punished with fine and imprisonment; but King James, whilst he was eager to sell the offending Earl’s lands for the payment of the fine, had said that he would “review the sentence of the Parliament, and confirm it as he saw cause;” he even made a speech in behalf of the dishonest treasurer, stating that, “in such cases, the nether house was but as informers, the Lords as the jury, and himself the judge;” giving them likewise to understand “that he took it not well, nor would endure it hereafter, that they should meddle with his servants, from the highest place down to the lowest _skull_ in the kitchen; but if they had ought against any, they should complain to him, and he would see it redressed according to right.”[306] Footnote 303: Brodie, from Rushworth, vol. ii., p.121. Footnote 304: Inedited State Papers, 1624. Footnote 305: Inedited State Papers; date, October 11th, 1624. Footnote 306: Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton. Inedited State Papers, June 5th, 1624. It was not, therefore, a matter of surprise that the Commons should, in a case considered still more flagrant, lose their moderation, knowing from experience how little justice their well-grounded complaints might receive at the hands of a monarch who had imbibed from his cradle such sentiments as those expressed by James I.