Chance threw into Elizabeth’s way a means of paralysing Alba for a time and rendering impossible the plans to injure her that she knew were hatching. Philip had, with infinite difficulty, managed to contract, at usurious rates, a loan of money from Genoese bankers, and, with his characteristic caution, he had stipulated that the money should be delivered by the lenders to the agents of the Duke of Alba in Antwerp. The Channel was infested with Huguenot privateers and pirates of all sorts on the look out for ships flying the Spanish flag, and the Dutch “Beggars” blockaded the Belgian coast. The ships, six or seven of them, which were bringing Philip’s borrowed treasure were known to have sailed late in November, and the rovers were all on the alert for them when they came. Finding themselves chased, the treasure ships ran into English ports, some into Plymouth, some to Falmouth, and the largest of them into Southampton, in order to escape their pursuers and claim official English protection. Even in port the privateers threatened the fugitives, and two of the treasure ships, swift Biscay cutters, fearing that the heretics on shore were as dangerous as their colleagues afloat, boldly ran the blockade of pirates and escaped, eventually arriving safely in Antwerp. But the others, and especially the big ship in Southampton with £31,000 in money on board, could only cling desperately to the English port authorities, whilst they sent swift messengers to Benedict Spinola, the famous Genoese banker in London, the agent and partner of the lenders, praying him to obtain safety for them.