452 OBSERTAT10NS ON A LIBEL. 



act of apparent hostility, added unto all the injuries 

 aforesaid, and accompanied with a continual receit, 

 comfort, and countenance, by audiencies, pensions, 

 and employments, which he gave to traitors and 

 fugitives, both English and Irish ; as Westmore 

 land, Paget, Englefield, Baltinglass, and numbers of 

 others ; did sufficiently justify and warrant that 

 pursuit of revenge, which, either in the spoil of 

 Carthagena and San Domingo in the Indies, by Mr. 

 Drake, or in the undertaking the protection of the 

 Low Countries when the earl of Leicester was sent 

 over, afterwards followed. For before that time her 

 majesty, though she stood upon her guard in respect 

 of the just cause of jealousy, which the sundry inju 

 ries of that king gave her ; yet had entered into no 

 offensive action against him. For both the voluntary 

 forces which Don Antonio had collected in this 

 realm, were by express commandment restrained, 

 and offer was made of restitution to the Spanish am 

 bassador of such treasure as had been brought into 

 this realm, upon proof that it had been taken by 

 wrong ; and the duke of Anjou was, as much as 

 could stand with the near treaty of a marriage which 

 then was very forward between her majesty and 

 the said duke, diverted from the enterprise of 

 Flanders. 



But to conclude this point : when that, some 

 years after, the invasion and conquest of this land, 

 intended long before, but through many crosses and 

 impediments, which the king of Spain found in his 

 plots, deferred, was in the year 1588 attempted ; 



