The magnitude of the disaster which had befallen the English fleet was well understood from the moment that the news reached Whitehall; and the recognition seems to have counselled in the mind of the King a policy of extreme caution rather than of hurried revenge. For, on November 6th, when Pepys wrote to the Admiral, in order to voice the opinion of the King and court, that none, who knew his lordship, would believe that any part of his “disappointment in relation to the Dutch fleet” could “be charged upon anything with in” his “power to have prevented”, and forwarded the latest news, establishing the fact that the landing begun at Torbay would continue in the Exe Estuary, he declared that he had no orders from the King, except to observe that, as the situation had changed in the direction of giving the Dutch “entire liberty to receive or attack”, the King trusted that the Admiral would not lose sight of the need to avoid undue exposure of the royal fleet. That careful attitude was even more fully demonstrated when the two despatches of the 5th (those sent from Beachy) reached town on the morning of the 7th.