bestowed on these poor fellows to whom she owed so
much. Drake and Hawkins, on the other hand, saw the national danger,
and founded a war fund called the "Chatham Chest"; and, after great
pressure, the Queen granted L20,000 and the loan of six battleships to
the Syndicate. Happily the commercial people gave freely, as they
always do. What trouble these matchless patriots had to overcome!
Intrigue, treason, religious fanaticism, begrudging of supplies, the
constant shortage of stores and provisions at every critical stage of
a crisis, the contradictory instructions from the exasperating Tudor
Queen: the fleet kept in port until the chances of an easy victory
over England's bitterest foes had passed away! But for the vacillation
of the icy virgin, Drake's Portugal expedition would have put the
triumph of the Spanish Armada to the blush, and the great Admiral
might have been saved the anguish of misfortune that seemed to follow
his future daring adventures for Spanish treasure on land and sea
until the shadows of failure compassed him round. His spirit broken
and his body smitten with incurable disease, the fleet under his
command anchored at Puerto Bello after a heavy passage from Escudo de
Veragua, a pestilential desert island. He was then in delirium, and on
the 28th January, 1596, the big soul of our greatest seaman passed
away beyond the veil. His body was put into a lead and oak coffin and
taken a few miles out to sea, and amidst manifestations of great
sorrow he was lowered down the side and the waters covered him over.
Two useless prize ships were sunk beside him, and there they may still
lie together. The fleet, having lost their guiding spirit, weighed
anchor and shaped their course homewards.

Drake was not merely a seaman and the creator of generations of
sailors, but he was also a sea warrior of superb naval genius. It was
he who invented the magnificent plan of searching for his country's
enemies in every creek into which he could get a craft. He also imbued
Her Gracious Majesty and Her Gracious Majesty's seamen with the idea
that in warfare on sea or land it is a first principle to strike first
if you wish to gain the field and hold it. Having smashed his
antagonist, he regarded it as a plain duty in the name of God to live
on his beaten foes and seize their treasures of gold, silver,
diamonds, works of art, etc., wherever these could be laid hold of.
The First Lady of the Land was abashed at the gallant sa