When Wynter received Spinola’s news on the 2nd December he was in Plymouth, assuring himself of the safety of the Spanish treasure ships there. Wynter naturally told the evil news he had learned from Spinola to William Hawkins, the brother of John, who lived in Plymouth, and William at once wrote to Cecil, who was also interested in the venture, suggesting that Spinola should be questioned, and if it turned out that the Spaniards had attacked the English trading expedition, the money in the ships now being protected by English guns should be seized in reprisal. This letter was written on the 3rd December, the day after the safe conduct had been signed by Elizabeth for bringing the treasure overland to Dover, and before Cecil can have received it this safe conduct was on its way in the hands of de Spes’s agents to Southampton, and so to Plymouth and Falmouth. Cecil’s messengers, however, were not far behind, and, in spite of the protest of the Spanish captain, Horsey, the Governor of the Isle of Wight, by Cecil’s secret orders, landed the treasure from the ship at Southampton and placed it in the keeping of the mayor of the town. Similar action was taken with the treasure at Plymouth and Falmouth, and when the news reached de Spes in London he at once jumped at the conclusion that the rumours were true that he had heard at Court to the effect that some of the Queen’s Council and her Huguenot friends had been urging her to keep the treasure for her own purposes. Spinola, a resident in London, dependent largely upon Elizabeth’s goodwill and Cecil’s friendship, had, indeed, let out in conversation not only what he had heard about the Spanish attack upon John Hawkins’s expedition in Mexico, but also that the Genoese financiers were responsible for the money advanced to Philip until it was handed to the Spanish authorities in Flanders. “In that case,” said Elizabeth, “I can borrow it myself; for my credit is quite as good as that of the King of Spain.” Rash de Spes, however, did not wait for any such public avowal. To his intemperate and insolent protests Cecil and the other Councillors would only say that the money was quite safe, and for the present no other answer with regard to it could be given to him. This was on the 21st December and the ambassador at once sent a special courier to Alba with a letter praying, in burning indignation, that all English property and that of Spinola on Spanish soil should be seized.[179] Nothing more unwise than this can be conceived; for no sooner had Alba made the confiscatory proclamation than Elizabeth not only justified thereby her seizure of the money, now openly avowed, but at once confiscated all Spanish and Flemish property in England, including the ships that had brought the money.