When the Order in Council was penned, Tromp had hemmed in the Spanish fleet in the Downs and was ready to pounce on it the moment it quitted English waters, or to destroy it there if he only could get a plausible excuse. Charles and his Council were trembling with fear lest the best known of all the “King’s Chambers” should be flagrantly violated by the impatient Dutchman, with all the world looking on. And twelve days after the Council meeting this is just what Tromp did, and Charles’s sovereignty of the seas vanished for ever. And the fishery scheme, “the Royal Fishery of Great Britain and Ireland,” set agoing after so much patient labour, heralded by so many promises of profit and success, designed to be a great instrument for the development of naval power and commerce, was extinguished in the following year, with no tangible result save that those who had given their money to it were left “great losers.” CHAPTER VII. CHARLES I.--_continued_. THE NAVY. Since Charles had resolved to assert his claims to the sovereignty of the sea by force if necessary, it was obviously essential that he should have a strong and capable fleet. During the peaceful reign of James the navy had greatly deteriorated from what it had been under Queen Elizabeth.[444] The expedition to Cadiz in 1625, and that to Rhé two years later, revealed startling inefficiency and disorganisation, and efforts were soon made to bring it into a better state. When he assumed the crown, his fleet consisted of thirty ships; in 1633 it numbered fifty, including the ten small vessels called the “Lion’s Whelps”; and when the Civil War broke out there were forty-two, the difference being due to the shedding of the smaller ones.[445] There were many reasons why a strong fleet should be provided, apart from any question of enforcing a new political sovereignty over the North Sea and the Channel. The maritime strength of the United Provinces was growing quickly, and France, under the wise and energetic guidance of Richelieu, was rapidly becoming a formidable naval power. Within the space of about five years before 1631, as Charles knew, the Cardinal had created a fleet of thirty-nine ships, of which eighteen were of 500 tons or over, and no less than twenty-seven had been built in French ports.[446] These two states were drawing closer together, and while it was known that their alliance, which was then mooted and was soon realised, would be chiefly directed against Spain, it was nevertheless a danger to England unless she was strong enough to defend her rights on the sea.