minster. The Spaniards were a
gallant race, and a dashing exploit, though at their own expense, could
be admired by the countrymen of Cervantes. 'So praised,' we read, 'was
Drake for his valour among them, that they said that if he was not a
Lutheran there would not be the like of him in the world.' A Court lady
was invited by the King to join a party on a lake near Madrid. The lady
replied that she dared not trust herself on the water with his Majesty
lest Sir Francis Drake should have her.

Drake might well be praised. But Drake would have been the first to
divide the honour with the comrades who were his arm and hand. Great
admirals and generals do not win their battles single-handed like the
heroes of romance. Orders avail only when there are men to execute them.
Not a captain, not an officer who served under Drake, ever flinched or
blundered. Never was such a school for seamen as that twenty years'
privateering war between the servants of the Pope and the West-country
Protestant adventurers. Those too must be remembered who built and
rigged the ships in which they sailed and fought their battles. We may
depend upon it that there was no dishonesty in contractors, no scamping
of the work in the yards where the Plymouth rovers were fitted out for
sea. Their hearts were in it; they were soldiers of a common cause.

Three weeks had sufficed for Cadiz. No order for recall had yet arrived.
Drake had other plans before him, and the men were in high spirits and
ready for anything. A fleet of Spanish men-of-war was expected round
from the Mediterranean. He proposed to stay for a week or two in the
neighbourhood of the Straits, in the hope of falling in with them. He
wanted fresh water, too, and had to find it somewhere.

Before leaving Cadiz Roads he had to decide what to do with his
prisoners. Many English were known to be in the hands of the Holy Office
working in irons as galley slaves. He sent in a pinnace to propose an
exchange, and had to wait some days for an answer. At length, after a
reference to Lisbon, the Spanish authorities replied that they had no
English prisoners. If this was true those they had must have died of
barbarous usage; and after a consultation with his officers Sir Francis
sent in word that for the future such prisoners as they might take would
be sold to the Moors, and the money applied to the redemption of English
captives in other parts of the world.

Water was the next point. There were spri