o responsible for the expenses of their
vessels, could not concur. Finally 110,000 ducats (equivalent in
purchasing power to nearly three millions of dollars) were accepted.

It was now impossible to complete the programme or even to take Havana,
in view of the renewed sickness, the losses, and the advance of the
season. A further disappointment was experienced when Drake just missed
the treasure fleet by only half a day, though through no fault of his
own. Then, with constantly diminishing numbers of effective men, the
course was shaped for the Spanish 'plantation' of St. Augustine in
Florida. This place was utterly destroyed and some guns and money were
taken from it. Then the fleet stood north again till, on the 9th of
June, it found Raleigh's colony of Roanoke.

Ralph Lane, the governor, was in his fort on the island ready to brave
it out. Drake offered a free passage home to all the colonists. But Lane
preferred staying and going on with his surveys and 'plantation.' Drake
then filled up a store ship to leave behind with Lane. But a terrific
three-day storm wrecked the store ship and damped the colonists'
enthusiasm so much that they persuaded Lane to change his mind. The
colonists embarked and the fleet then bore away for home. Though balked
of much it had expected in the way of booty, reduced in strength by
losses, and therefore unable to garrison any strategic point which would
threaten the life of New Spain, its purely naval work was a true and
glorious success. When he arrived at Plymouth, Drake wrote immediately
to Burleigh: 'My very good Lord, there is now a very great gap opened,
very little to the liking of the King of Spain.'

This 'very great gap' on the American side of the Atlantic was soon to
be matched by the still greater gap Drake was to make on the European
side by destroying the Spanish Armada and thus securing that mightiest
of ocean highways through which the hosts of emigration afterwards
poured into a land endowed with the goodly heritage of English liberty
and the English tongue.

The year of Drake's return (1586) was no less troublous than its
immediate predecessors. The discovery of the Babington Plot to
assassinate Elizabeth and to place Mary on the throne, supported by
Scotland, France, and Spain, proved Mary's complicity, produced an
actual threat of war from France, and made the Pope and Philip gnash
their teeth with rage. The Roman Catholic allied powers had no
sufficient navy,