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A new industry was now coming into existence, namely the shipping of masts to France for the King's navy; Diereville sailed to France in the Avenant "a good King's ship," mounting 44 guns which had brought out the ammunition and provisions that Placentia and the Fort on the River St. John received annually.

These were the causes which opened the Alps to Hasdrubal. But the advantage which he gained by the celerity of his march he lost by his delay at Placentia, while he carried on a fruitless siege, rather than an assault.

The Insubrians, Caenomanians, and Boians, having been joined by the Salyans, Ilvatians, and other Ligurian states, and putting themselves under the command of Hamilcar, a Carthaginian, who, having been in the army of Hasdrubal, had remained in those parts, had fallen upon Placentia; and, after plundering the city, and, in their rage, burning a great part of it, leaving scarcely two thousand men among the flames and ruins, passed the Po, and advanced to plunder Cremona.

Here they received news of the recent death of Pope Clement IV, at which they were, much grieved, fearing it would cause delay in their mission. There was at that time in Acre a legate of the holy chair, Tebaldo di Vesconti, of Placentia, to whom they gave an account of their embassy.

The contracting parties agreed, that all prisoners on each side should be mutually released, without ransom, and all conquests restored; that the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, should be ceded as a settlement to the infant don Philip, and the heirs male of his body; but in case of his ascending the throne of Spain, or of the two Sicilies, or his dying without male issue, that they should revert to the house of Austria; that the king of Great Britain should, immediately after the ratification of this treaty, send two persons of rank and distinction, to reside in France, as hostages, until restitution should be made of Cape Breton, and all the other conquests which his Britannic majesty should have achieved in the East or West Indies, before or after the preliminaries were signed; that the assiento contract, with the article of the annual ship, should be confirmed for four years, during which the enjoyment of that privilege was suspended since the commencement of the present war; that Dunkirk should remain fortified on the land side, and towards the sea continue on the footing of former treaties.

The twelve most recent of these Ariminum, Beneventum, Firmum, Aesernia, Brundisium, Spoletium, Cremona, Placentia, Copia, Valentia, Bononia, and Aquileia are those here referred to; and because Ariminum was the oldest of these and the town for which this new organization was primarily established, partly perhaps also because it was the first Roman colony founded beyond Italy, the -ius- of these colonies rightly took its name from Ariminum.

They had no despatches, no credentials, no papers at all, except a diploma with entries from Bononia, through Parma, Placentia and Clastidium to Dertona and so onwards; a diploma so manifestly a clumsy forgery that, at sight of it, I wondered how it had fooled the stupidest change-master. Pescennius barely glanced at it. To his apparitors, he said: "Arrest these three!"

The strong citadel of Tortona was taken by the Spaniards, who likewise reduced Parma and Placentia; and forcing the passage of the Tanaro, compelled his Sardinian majesty to take shelter on the other side of the Po.

All of this, of course, we learnt later in the year; for, inside our prison, we knew nothing of what went on in Placentia, let alone of what went on in Italy and in Rome itself.

By another Act, any seaman in the merchant-service, who had been disabled in defending or taking enemy's ships was deemed qualified to be admitted into Greenwich Hospital. A fleet, under Sir Hovenden Walker, whose flag-ship was the Edgar, was sent out to attack Quebec, and to recover from the French Placentia, in the island of Newfoundland.