The Flemish noble Zweveghem, and the Genoese merchant Fiesco, who had both been negotiating in London about the seizures, were packed off at the same time as de Spes, for Elizabeth and Cecil were bent upon making the demonstration as political and public as possible; but though it did not suit the economical Queen to disgorge what she had taken, she had no wish to drive Philip to extremities, and the stoppage of the great English cloth trade with Flanders and of the importation of Spanish produce into England was causing serious distress in the country. So, having thoroughly humbled the Spaniards, whose hands were fuller than ever now with the capture of Brille by the Beggars and the rising of all Zeeland, supported by ample English aid, Elizabeth thought that the time had come for her to unbend a little to her sorely pressed brother-in-law. Walsingham’s half joking colloquy with Alava in Paris, in January, 1572, had been a straw cast into the air; the warning of the Dutch privateer fleet out of Dover, though ostensibly to satisfy the remonstrances of the Hamburg merchants, was another; and in March Guaras, a mere merchant, hitherto so unpopular, suddenly found himself made much of by emissaries from the Court. Friends of Cecil told him that the Queen was only too willing to come to an amicable arrangement about trade, and any person who brought it about would be doing a great service to God and to both countries. What a pity it was that there was no person accredited in London who could undertake it! Would Guaras convey these expressions to Alba? If so, the interlocutor would approach Lord Burghley. After many hints of this sort Burghley himself sent for Guaras, and told him that they were anxious to settle matters. “He spoke of your Majesty’s person with due reverence, confessing to me that they had always hitherto feared and suspected greatly that the Duke of Alba, being a declared enemy, might oppose a settlement, but they had lately been informed that the evil did not arise with him entirely, but from certain persons in your Majesty’s Court, mentioning the late Duke of Feria, who, he said, though ostensibly a good friend of the Queen, was in matters of State her enemy.” Guaras, who loved to play the statesman, boasted somewhat of his master’s greatness and of the benefit his friendship would bring to England, but, of course, in diplomacy he was no match for Cecil, who firmly put him into his place. Thenceforward for weeks the game of advance and retire on the part of Cecil went on. Sometimes Guaras would go home to Thames Street in the seventh heaven of delight, with the idea that he was settling great national affairs where professional diplomatists had failed; at other times he would stand for hours in Cecil’s anterooms of Whitehall, only to be passed by silently with a cold nod when the Minister came out.