On being called upon to surrender the island for the use of the Parliament of England, the Governor replied that he acknowledged no supremacy over Englishmen save the king and those having commissions from him, directing the letter to the admiral on board His Majesty's ship the _Rainbow_. He also said that he had expected some overtures of reparation for the hostile acts upon the ships in the bay. After this defiance nothing was left but to prepare first for a strict blockade, and then to effect a landing. The strength on shore was too great for any open attack, and Ayscue managed to send a proclamation addressed to the freeholders and inhabitants, urging them to accept in time his offers of peace and mercy. In answer to this the Assembly met and passed a declaration to "sticke to" Lord Willoughby and defend the island to the utmost. In England a great deal of interest was felt in the struggle, and the demand for news of the expedition created a supply giving circumstantial accounts of what had _not_ taken place. One of them was headed, "Bloody news from the Barbados, being a true relation of a great and terrible fight between the Parliament's Navie, commanded by Sir George Ayscue, and the King of Scots' Forces under the command of the Lord Willoughby; with the particulars of the fight, the storming of the Island, the manner how the Parliament's Forces were repulsed and beaten off from Carlisle Bay and the Block House, and the number killed and wounded." And all this before any attempt had been made beyond the blockade! On the receipt of the news of the battle of Worcester, Ayscue sent another flag of truce to give Willoughby the information, saying that he did so as a friend rather than as an enemy. He was acting in that quality, by stating the true condition of England, and leaving him and his friends to judge of the necessity for due obedience to the State of England; otherwise they would be swallowed up in the destruction so shortly and inevitably coming upon them. In reply, Willoughby said he had never served his king so much in expectation of prosperity as in consideration of duty, and that he would not be the means of increasing the sad affliction of His Majesty by giving up that island. To this Ayscue rejoined, that if there were such a person as the king, Willoughby's retention of that place signified nothing to his advantage, and therefore the surrender could be small grief to him. He well knew the impossibility of the island subsisting without the patronage of England, and the admiral's great desire was to save it from ruin and destruction.