For was not the Swedish King still, as before, the one real man of mark in the whole world of the Baltic, the hope of that league of Protestant championship on the Continent which Cromwell had laboured for; and was he not now standing at bay against a most ugly and unnatural combination of enemies?
Not only were John Casimir and his Roman Catholic Poles, and the Emperor Leopold and his Roman Catholic Austrians, and Protestant Brandenburg and some other German States, all in eager alliance with the Danes for the opportunity of another rush against _him_; the Dutch too were abetting the Danes for their own commercial interests?
Actually this was the state of things which Richard's Government had to consider.

Charles Gustavus was still besieging Copenhagen; a Dutch fleet, under Admiral Opdam, had gone to the Baltic to relieve the Danes (Oct.

1658): was Cromwell's grand alliance with the Swede, were the prospects of the Protestant League, were English interests in the Baltic, to be of no account?
Applications for help had been made by the Swedish King; Mazarin, through the French ambassador, had been urging assistance to Sweden; the inclinations of Richard, Thurloe, and the rest, were all that way.

Here again, however, the perplexity of home-affairs, the want of money, the refusal of Mazarin himself to lend even L50,000, were pleaded in excuse.

All that could be done at first was to further the despatch to the Baltic of Sir George Ayscough, an able English Admiral who had for some years been too much in the background, but of whom the Swedish Count Bundt had conceived a high opinion during his embassy to England in 1655-6, and who had consequently been invited by the Swedish King to enter his service, bringing with him as many English officers and seamen as he could.
This volunteer expedition of Ayscough Richard and his Council did at once countenance.