 During these negotiations, Buat was in contact with leading Orangists, including the Lord of Zuylestein and the Rotterdam regent Johan Kievit, although the Prince himself was not involved.By the spring of 1666, the Dutch had rebuilt their fleet with much heavier ships, thirty of them possessing more cannon than any Dutch ship available in early 1665, and threatened to join forces with the French.The greater part of the French fleet was in the Mediterranean under the duc de Beaufort, and Louis intended that much of this would be brought into the Atlantic to join up with the Atlantic squadron commanded by Abraham Duquesne.