On August 1 the Admiral stood into the Firth of Forth and despatched to Edinburgh a missive for the Court, telling the good news. Then the squadron from the 2nd to the 8th of August beat off and on the coast, going as far north as Aberdeen (5th August) and reaching twenty to thirty leagues off without seeing any busses. It then turned southwards, and on the 9th gave chase to two men-of-war guarding a fleet of busses, the latter, as before, making all haste away. The Dutch men-of-war coming up to the English squadron, no doubt to inquire and protest, were promptly manned with English sailors and sent in hot haste after the busses that had fled. “Yet,” said the Earl, “with all the wayes we could use, we gott not above 20 of them, though wee spent divers shott to make them come in.”[540] On the same afternoon Pennington’s squadron came up from the northwards, where they had succeeded in distributing only three licenses; and on this day three of the ships were sent back to port by reason of “divers desertes,” which made them unfit to keep the sea longer.[541] [Illustration: Fig. 11.--_Dutch Herring-busses hauling their nets, with convoying ship-of-war._ After Van der Meulen.] Passing to the southward of the Firth of Forth on 10th August, the English squadron, before the day broke on the 11th, had the good luck to sail into a great fleet of about two hundred busses, which were guarded by five States’ men-of-war. To thirty-five of these fishing-boats Rear-Admiral Mervin, whose squadron was found here, had given licenses on the previous day, and Northumberland now distributed about a hundred more amongst them, and left the _Convertive_, the _Bonaventure_, and the _Fifth Whelp_ to act as a guard to them on behalf of the King of England, with spare licenses for any other busses that might require them. Next day Northumberland disposed of a few more licenses and came to anchor, lest the ships should damage the long drifting-nets of the fishermen. But a heavy gale coming on and threatening to increase, the Admiral fired a warning gun and weighed at break of day on the 13th: so furious was the wind and sea that two of the vessels broke loose, and others had the greatest difficulty in getting up their anchors, and the English fleet was dispersed. The _Triumph_ made for Scarborough, where it was joined during the next few days by the rest of the fleet, and then they all left for the Downs. On the morning of the 20th they descried twenty sail of good ships, and on filling sails and standing to them they found they were Dutch men-of-war, under Van Dorp, who, as we shall see, had been sent by the States-General to protect the busses and prevent the acceptance of the English licenses. The Dutch ships, as the Earl carefully recorded in his Journal, “tooke in all their flaggs, strucke their topsails, and every ship one after another saluted us with their guns, which we answered.” Van Dorp went on board the _Triumph_ to explain to the