'Drake, I would gladly be revenged on the King of
Spain for divers injuries that I have received.' 'And withal,' says
Drake, 'craved my advice therein; who told Her Majesty the only way was
to annoy him by the Indies.' On that he disclosed his whole daring
scheme for raiding the Pacific. Elizabeth, who, like her father, 'loved
a man' who was a man, fell in with this at once. Secrecy was of course
essential. 'Her Majesty did swear by her Crown that if any within her
realm did give the King of Spain to understand hereof they should lose
their heads therefor.' At a subsequent audience 'Her Majesty gave me
special commandment that of all men my Lord Treasurer should not know of
it.' The cautious Lord Treasurer Burleigh was against what he considered
dangerous forms of privateering and was for keeping on good terms with
Spanish arms and trade as long as possible. Mendoza, lynx-eyed
ambassador of Spain, was hoodwinked. But Doughty, the viper in Drake's
bosom, was meditating mischief: not exactly treason with Spain, but at
least a breach of confidence by telling Burleigh.

De Guaras, chief Spanish spy in England, was sorely puzzled. Drake's
ostensible destination was Egypt, and his men were openly enlisted for
Alexandria. The Spaniards, however, saw far enough through this to
suppose that he was really going back to Nombre de Dios. It did not seem
likely, though quite possible, that he was going in search of the
Northwest Passage, for Martin Frobisher had gone out on that quest the
year before and had returned with a lump of black stone from the arctic
desolation of Baffin Island. No one seems to have divined the truth.
Cape Horn was unknown. The Strait of Magellan was supposed to be the
only opening between South America and a huge antarctic continent, and
its reputation for disasters had grown so terrible, and rightly
terrible, that it had been given up as the way into the Pacific. The
Spanish way, as we have seen, was overland from Nombre de Dios to
Panama, more or less along the line of the modern Panama Canal.

In the end Drake got away quietly enough, on the 15th of November,
1577. The court and country were in great excitement over the conspiracy
between the Spaniards and Mary Queen of Scots, now a prisoner of nine
years' standing.

'THE FAMOUS VOYAGE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE _into the South Sea, and
therehence about the whole Globe of the Earth, begun in the year of our
Lord 1577_' well deserves its great renown. Drake's