undoubtedly would have gone, and would have done something
with which all the world would have rung, but for the positive command
of his mistress. He lingered in the roads at Cintra, hoping that Santa
Cruz would come out and meet him. All Spain was clamouring at Santa
Cruz's inaction. Philip wrote to stir the old admiral to energy. He must
not allow himself to be defied by a squadron of insolent rovers. He must
chase them off the coast or destroy them. Santa Cruz needed no stirring.
Santa Cruz, the hero of a hundred fights, was chafing at his own
impotence; but he was obliged to tell his master that if he wished to
have service out of his galleons he must provide crews to handle them,
and they must rot at their anchors till he did. He told him, moreover,
that it was time for him to exert himself in earnest. If he waited much
longer, England would have grown too strong for him to deal with.

In strict obedience Drake ought now to have gone home, but the campaign
had brought so far more glory than prize-money. His comrades required
some consolation for their disappointment at Lisbon. The theory of these
armaments of the adventurers was that the cost should be paid somehow by
the enemy, and he could be assured that if he brought back a prize or
two in which she could claim a share the Queen would not call him to a
very strict account. Homeward-bound galleons or merchantmen were to be
met with occasionally at the Azores. On leaving Lisbon Drake headed away
to St. Michael's, and his lucky star was still in the ascendant.

As if sent on purpose for him, the _San Philip_, a magnificent caraque
from the Indies, fell straight into his hands, 'so richly loaded,' it
was said, 'that every man in the fleet counted his fortune made.' There
was no need to wait for more. It was but two months since Drake had
sailed from Plymouth. He could now go home after a cruise of which the
history of his own or any other country had never presented the like.
He had struck the King of Spain in his own stronghold. He had disabled
the intended Armada for one season at least. He had picked up a prize by
the way and as if by accident, worth half a million, to pay his
expenses, so that he had cost nothing to his mistress, and had brought
back a handsome present for her. I doubt if such a naval estimate was
ever presented to an English House of Commons. Above all he had taught
the self-confident Spaniard to be afraid of him, and he carried back his
poor