The Mediterranean was the scene of a very much more lively and varied fragment of the great war. It has been said above that when Penn left the Mediterranean at the beginning of 1652 he was replaced by Captain Richard Badiley, who was despatched into those seas with a squadron appointed to protect the merchant ships against an attack by Prince Rupert and the French. The main centres of English trade in the Mediterranean were the Levant,--where the Turkey Company had factories at Smyrna and Scanderoon (Alexandretta),--Venice, and Leghorn. When the Dutch war broke out, there were six English warships in the Mediterranean, stretching widely over it for the purpose of collecting merchant ships at their different ports of departure, and bringing them together into one convoy before passing the Straits on the way home. Badiley himself was at Scanderoon with three ships. Captain Henry Appleton was at Leghorn with two. The sixth, the =Constant Warwick=, was at Genoa, where she had been sent to careen, because she was very foul and eaten by worms. Appleton had several English ships with him, and he would in the ordinary course of the service wait until he was joined by Badiley before sailing for England. The outbreak of the war with Holland entirely broke up the usual arrangement. The Dutch were represented in the Mediterranean by a force numerically stronger than ours, though the individual ships were smaller than our largest. This advantage they were certain to use for the destruction of our trade. The war began in June, and, as news travelled slowly then, was not known, even in Italy, till the end of that month or the beginning of the next. The Dutch ships in the western half of the Mediterranean were collected in the neighbourhood of Appleton, at Leghorn. They were fourteen in number, and were under the command of an officer named Catz. With such a disproportion of force against him, the English officer had no resource but to seek the protection of a neutral port. Leghorn belonged to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and to him Appleton appealed for protection. The Grand Duke was not very favourably inclined towards the English officer, who had cost him considerable annoyance by capturing a French vessel just outside his port and bringing her in as a prize. The position of a neutral in a great naval war is always more or less disagreeable. The combatants are generally either anxious to make use of its harbours as a refuge, or eager to follow up an enemy in its waters. The ingenuity of international lawyers has invented many pretty and plausible regulations for the guidance of all persons in such a case. But it is the misfortune of international law that nobody is bound to enforce its decrees unless he feels himself injured by the breach of them, while the party who really is injured, and therefore quotes them on his own behalf, is frequently the weaker, and so is unable to supply that sanction which is necessary for the validity of any law. Between the stronger who wishes to crush the weaker, and the weaker who does not wish to be crushed, the neutral is often in a dilemma of great delicacy, since the weaker is often quite strong enough to be able to punish him for inability to enforce respect for his own neutrality. Besides, it is particularly hard to judge from the local strength of belligerents which of them is likely to prove the more powerful on the whole. When, then, Captain Appleton brought the French prize into Leghorn, he caused the Grand Duke very intelligible annoyance. The English might have the upper hand at sea, and yet the French might be quite powerful enough by land to pay themselves for what England had taken on the water, by pillaging the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. A not dissimilar dilemma presented itself when Appleton appealed to the protection of the port against the fourteen ships of Catz. The Grand Duke could hardly tell which of the two was the most dangerous to offend. In spite of the offence given him by Appleton, he endeavoured to hold the balance even between the quarrelsome sea powers. He promised the English that he would not allow the Dutchmen to attack them if they came within the Mole of Leghorn. In regard to the waters beyond he could give no guarantee, since he had no naval force. To make assurance doubly sure, he allowed the English merchant ships to land their cargoes, and put them for safety in the Lazaretto or Quarantine House of Leghorn. Appleton might possibly have increased his force to a point which would have made it comparatively safe for him to give battle to the Dutch, if the merchant ships in the harbour had been willing to help him. They all carried guns, and the crews of that time were comparatively large. The merchant captains displayed the cowardice of the mere trader.