he war with France, and the expected struggle of far
greater magnitude with Spain. Numerous English subjects had also
suffered from the Spanish Inquisition, and Englishmen of rank and wealth
considered that they were justified in retaliating on the authors of the
cruelties practised on their own countrymen. From every port and river
vessels fitted out as traders went forth heavily armed to plunder on the
high seas any of the ships of the common enemy of mankind with which
they could fall in. At first the bold privateersmen confined themselves
to the narrow seas, pouncing down upon any Spanish ship which approached
their shores, either driven in thither by the wind, or compelled to seek
shelter by stress of weather. Many a trader from Antwerp to Cadiz
mysteriously disappeared, or, arriving without her cargo, reported that
she had been set upon by a powerful craft, when, boats coming out from
the English shore, she had been quickly unladen, her crew glad to escape
with their lives. The Scilly Islands especially afforded shelter to a
squadron of vessels under Sir Thomas Seymour, who, sailing forth into
the chops of the channel, laid wait for any richly-laden craft he might
happen to espy. Among other men of rank who thus distinguished
themselves were the sons of Lord Chobham. Influenced by that hatred of
Roman abominations which had long been the characteristic of their
family, Thomas Chobham, the most daring of the brothers, had established
himself in a strongly-fortified port in the south of Ireland, from
whence, sailing forth with his stout ships, he attacked the Spaniards on
their own coasts. Coming in sight of a large ship in the channel, laden
with a cargo valued at 80,000 ducats, and having on board forty
prisoners doomed to serve in the galleys, he chased her into the Bay of
Biscay, where, at length coming up with her, he compelled her to strike,
when he released the prisoners, and transferred the cargo to his own
ship. The Spaniards declare that he sewed up all the survivors of the
crew in their own sails and hove them overboard; but as the story rests
on no better authority than that of the Spaniards themselves, we may be
excused from giving it credence. The stories of the cruelties practised
by the Spaniards on their prisoners are too well authenticated to be
doubted. The men who could be guilty of one-tenth part of the horrors
they compelled their fellow-subjects in the Netherlands to endure, or
those