308 Professor J. K. Laugldon [May 4, 



by a vastly superior Spanish force, and were overwhelmed. Hawkyns 

 and Drake, in two of the smallest vessels, alone escaped. 



Ordinary men, under the circumstances, would have digested their 

 loss as they best might ; but these were far indeed from being ordinary 

 men, and they determined by fair means or foul to exact compensation 

 for the injury which they conceived had been done them. Hawkyns 

 entered into a simulated negotiation to hand over a considerable part 

 of the navy of England to King Philip, on condition of having the 

 men who had been taken prisoners set free, and of receiving money 

 comi^ensation for his loss. This peculiar intrigue forms an amusing 

 episode in the history of the Ridolfi plot in 1571. Drake, on the 

 other hand, finding compensation not forthcoming, resolved to seek it 

 for himself; and after some preliminary cruises, made that wonderful 

 and adventurous voyage, in which, with a mere handful of men, he 

 took Nombre de Dios, sacked Yenta Cruz, captured a convoy of mules 

 laden with silver, and returned home v^ith more treasure than any 

 one ship had previously brought to England. His achievement was 

 to be speedily surpassed, and by himself. Fonr years afterwards he 

 started on a voyage for the South Sea, and, capturing Spanish ships 

 by the score and Spanish towns by the dozen, put a girdle round the 

 globe and returned to England, again bringing back an enormous 

 quantity of treasure, to the amount, it was said, of a million and a 

 half sterling. The outcry of the friends of Spain was very loud. 

 Drake, they said, was a pirate ; and unless he was punished, war with 

 Sj^ain was inevitable. Elizabeth had apparently made up her mind 

 that, in any case, war was extremely probable ; and to give back 

 money on which she had once got her clutches was to her a constitu- 

 tional impossibility. She kept the money, and she knighted Drake. 

 Now we, as Englishmen, can admire the achievements of this man, and 

 can sympathise with the wrongs which impelled him to them ; but we 

 must at the same time admit that, were we Spaniards, we might take 

 a very different view of Drake's career. It is, at any rate, quite 

 certain that the king of Sjmin, and not only the king, but everyone of 

 his subjects, considered Drake as a pirate who ought to have been 

 hanged, and maintained that the approval and sujDiDort which he 

 received from the English crown was a distinct and valid reason for 

 an appeal to arms. 



The other and almost equally valid reason, was the countenance 

 and assistance which had been given by the English, indirectly and 

 directly, to the king's rebellious subjects in the Low Countries. 

 There were, of course, many other grounds of ill-will, beginning, it 

 may be, with Elizabeth's refusal to marry Philip. The quarrel had 

 been growing all along : Elizabeth had seized the Duke of Alva's 

 treasure ; had allowed Dutch privateers to shelter in English harbours ; 

 had supported Dutch rebels. Philip, on the other hand, had stirred 

 up and fomented rebellion in Ireland, and had been a party to many 

 plots in England — plots against the Queen's sovereignty, plots 

 against the Queen's life. The breach was by no means a one- 

 sided one ; though we are naturally accustomed to lay most stress 



