Francis Drake
contributed considerably. Elizabeth, determined to retaliate on the
Spaniards, fitted out a fleet in the following spring of 146 sail, which
destroyed Corunna and Vigo, as well as the Castle of Cascacs at the
mouth of the Tagus, and captured sixty large ships. In 1590 the queen
allotted 8790 pounds a-year for the repairs of the Royal Navy; a sum
which would go but a short way at the present day in building a single
ship.

About this time the telescope was invented by Janssen, a spectacle-maker
of Middleburgh, in Zealand. Hearing of it, Galileo immediately
constructed his first _very_ imperfect instrument, which magnified only
three times. Further experiments enabled him to construct another with
a power of eight, and ultimately, sparing neither labour nor expense, he
formed one which bore a magnifying power of more than thirty times.
With this instrument, he commenced that survey of the heavenly bodies
which rendered his name famous as the first of astronomers. In the
reign of Charles the Second, in 1671, Sir Isaac Newton constructed his
first reflecting telescope, a small ill-made instrument, nine inches
only in length--valuable as it was, a pigmy in power compared to Lord
Rosse's six-feet reflector of sixty feet in length. Torricelli, the
pupil of Galileo, invented the barometer.

In 1591 the first voyage to the East Indies was undertaken by Captain
Lancaster, in three ships. One was sent back with invalids, another was
lost with all on board, and the crew of the captain's ship mutinied
while he was on shore on an uninhabited island, and ran off with her,
leaving him and his companions for three years, till they were rescued.

Among the brave admirals of this period, one of the most gallant was Sir
Richard Grenville, who, after serving his country for many years, sailed
in the _Revenge_ as Vice-Admiral to Lord Admiral Howard, in 1591, in
search of the Spanish West India merchant-fleet, with a squadron of six
men-of-war, six victuallers, and a few pinnaces. The English squadron
was at anchor near the island of Flores, when the admiral received
intelligence of the approaching Spanish fleet. He was in no condition
to oppose the Spaniards, for, besides being greatly inferior in numbers,
nearly half the men were disabled by the scurvy, a large proportion of
whom were on shore. The admiral immediately weighed and put to sea, and
the rest of his squadron followed his example. Sir Richard Grenville,