the king’s edict was discussed at the beginning of June, and it was remitted to a committee, with Joachimi (then in Holland) and the Prince of Orange, for consideration, and to report as to what measures should be taken to protect the interests of the fishermen. The States finally resolved to do two things--first, to endeavour by all diplomatic means to get the proposed action of the king delayed, and second, to equip a strong fleet to protect the fishermen by force lest diplomacy failed. In these anxious days Van Beveren kept a tireless eye on the English fleet lying in the Downs, and reported to the States-General from time to time anything he learned of its movements or the rumours he heard concerning it.[547] Twelve days before it sailed for the north, he informed them that the general opinion was that it would return to the westwards to look for the French fleet. A few days later he discovered its real destination, and at once demanded an audience of the king. Charles received him very courteously at Windsor on the 17th July; assured him that he would treat the Dutch “as friends”; and explained that the measures to be taken by the fleet were of a peaceful nature, and were intended to benefit the fishermen by extending to them the protection of England against the Dunkirk privateers, from whom they had suffered so much in the previous year. The payment of a small acknowledgment would in reality, he said, be very profitable to them. Van Beveren had accordingly to content himself as well as he could with these assurances. He received the condolences of the French ambassador, with whom he had frequent interviews, and who pointed out to him that the circumstances of the time were such that the wisest course would be to deprive the king of every pretext for open hostility. If the matter could only be prolonged under the pretence of negotiations until peace was concluded with Spain, then indeed France--ay, and even Spain too, he added--would join with the States in bringing the King of England speedily to reason. When Northumberland actually departed for the north, Van Beveren immediately informed the States-General of the important fact; but it was not long until the king was able to tell him that the fishermen had accepted the licenses and paid the acknowledgment “with good contentment.”[548] The ambassador’s reports, and still more the accounts which soon poured in from the busses and the convoys of their treatment by the English fleet, raised a storm of indignation in the United Provinces. Captain Ruyter sent on, for visual inspection, the safe-conduct or passport which the Earl of Northumberland had forced upon him; and Joost Bouwensz, and some of the other skippers who had taken the licenses, were loud in their complaints. The unheard-of proceeding was discussed in every seaport town.