In the official instructions from the Lords of the Admiralty, issued on the day after the secret agreement with Spain had been drawn up, the Earl was ordered principally to guard the narrow seas and the king’s subjects and allies trading through them, and so to dispose his ships that “all parts of the seas, as well from the Start westward as the rest of the Sleeve from the Start to the Downs, and from thence northward, might be secured from men-of-war, pirates and sea-rovers and of picaroons that interrupt the trade and commerce of his Majesty’s dominions.” It was to be his principal care to preserve the king’s honour, coasts, jurisdiction, territories, and subjects within the extent of his employment, “that no nation or people whatsoever intrude thereon or injure any of them.” If he met “in his Majesty’s seas” any fleet or ships belonging to any foreign prince or state, he was to expect that the admiral or chief of them, in acknowledgment of his Majesty’s sovereignty there, should perform “their duty and homage in passing by”; if they refused and offered to resist, he was “to force them thereunto, and to bring them in to answer this their high contempt and presumption according to law.” He was to suffer no dishonour to be done to the king or derogation to his power or sovereignty in those seas. If English ships so far forgot their duty as not to strike their top-sails in passing, the commanders were either to be punished on the spot or reported to the Admiralty, who would punish them exemplarily. When he met with foreign men-of-war or merchant vessels, either at sea or in any road “or other place,” he was to send to them to discover if any English subjects were serving on board; and if so he was “to cause them to be taken forth and committed,” to answer their contempt of the king’s proclamation forbidding such service, and also to caution the commander of the vessel in which they were found not to receive English subjects again; but the Earl was expressly forbidden to send any of his men on board the foreign vessels to search for English subjects. The most remarkable part of the instructions issued to the first ship-money fleet referred to the hostilities between the ships of other nations, not merely in the King’s Chambers, but throughout the narrow seas. “In this your Lordship’s employment,” wrote the Lords of the Admiralty, “you are not to permit or suffer any men-of-war to fight with each other, or men-of-war with merchant, or merchant with merchant, in the presence of his Majesty’s ships in any part of the Narrow Seas. But you are to do your best to keep peace in those seas for the freer and better maintenance of trade and commerce through the same, so that all men trading or sailing within those his Majesty’s seas do justly take themselves to be _in pace Domini Regis_. And therefore his Majesty in honour and justice is to protect them from injury and violence.”[474]