It is interesting to compare these instructions to Lindsey with those given earlier to Pennington as admiral of the fleet for the guard of the narrow seas. His private instructions from the Lords of the Admiralty in 1631 contained a clause regarding the homage of foreign vessels on meeting the king’s ships. He was to expect the admiral or chief, in acknowledgment of the king’s sovereignty in the narrow seas, “to strike their toppe sayles in passing by,” and if they refused he was to force them to do so; and in no wise suffer any dishonour to be done to his Majesty, or derogation to his sovereign power in those seas. At that time the efforts of Richelieu to create a French navy had caused some disquiet in England, and Pennington was also ordered to do his utmost, by spies and otherwise, to discover whether any considerable preparations were being made abroad.[475] The instructions in 1631 appear to have represented the English pretensions so far as they were understood at the time. There was nothing about forbidding the hostilities of belligerents, as in Lindsey’s instructions. On the contrary, Pennington was told that if he saw any Hollanders and Dunkirkers in fight at sea he was to take no part with either, “but to pass by and leave them to their fortunes”; and he issued orders to his subordinates to that effect.[476] In his instructions in 1633 this clause was repeated, but in other respects they resembled those of Lindsey.[477] The same duties were allotted to him in 1634, and he was specially charged to free the narrow seas of pirates and sea-rovers, and to prevent hostilities in the King’s Chambers. “If,” he was told, “any man-of-war, or other, _in any of his Majesty’s roads, harbours, or coasts_, shall offer any violence by unduly taking out any ships, vessels, goods or merchandise, of what nation soever, or commit any other insolency, you shall do your best to recover the same again from them, and reform the abuses, either by due admonition, or (if that will not serve) by bringing the offender to answer to justice, preserving by all means the honour of his Majesty from such insolencies (as much as in you lieth), having always a due regard to the amity between his Majesty, his friends and allies.”[478]