arm, which Spanish wisdom would do well to fear. It
was a singular position. Philip had outraged orthodoxy and dared the
anger of Rome by maintaining an ambassador at Elizabeth's Court after
her excommunication. He had laboured for a reconciliation with a
sincerity which his secret letters make it impossible to doubt. He had
condescended even to sue for it, in spite of Drake and the voyage of the
_Pelican_; yet he had helped the Pope to set Ireland in a flame. He had
encouraged Elizabeth's Catholic subjects in conspiracy after conspiracy.
He had approved of attempts to dispose of her as he had disposed of the
Prince of Orange. Elizabeth had retaliated, though with half a heart, by
letting her soldiers volunteer into the service of the revolted
Netherlands, by permitting English privateers to plunder the Spanish
colonies, seize the gold ships, and revenge their own wrongs. Each,
perhaps, had wished to show the other what an open war would cost them
both, and each drew back when war appeared inevitable.

Events went their way. Holland and Zeeland, driven to extremity, had
petitioned for incorporation with England; as a counter-stroke and a
warning, Philip had arrested the English corn ships and imprisoned the
owners and the crews. Her own fleet was nothing. The safety of the
English shores depended on the spirit of the adventurers, and she could
not afford to check the anger with which the news was received. To
accept the offer of the States was war, and war she would not have.
Herself, she would not act at all; but in her usual way she might let
her subjects act for themselves, and plead, as Philip pleaded in excuse
for the Inquisition, that she could not restrain them. And thus it was
that in September 1585, Sir Francis Drake found himself with a fleet of
twenty-five privateers and 2,500 men who had volunteered to serve with
him under his own command. He had no distinct commission. The expedition
had been fitted out as a private undertaking. Neither officers nor crews
had been engaged for the service of the Crown. They received no wages.
In the eye of the law they were pirates. They were going on their own
account to read the King of Spain a necessary lesson and pay their
expenses at the King of Spain's cost. Young Protestant England had taken
fire. The name of Drake set every Protestant heart burning, and hundreds
of gallant gentlemen had pressed in to join. A grandson of Burghley had
come, and Edward Winter the Admira