It was, however, supposed for a long time that they would come back, for
the disasters which had befallen them in the north were but tardily known
in England. The sailors, by whom England had been thus defended in her
utmost need, were dying by hundreds, and even thousands, of ship-fever,
in the latter days of August. Men sickened one day, and died the next, so
that it seemed probable that the ten thousand sailors by whom the English
ships of war were manned, would have almost wholly disappeared, at a
moment when their services might be imperatively required. Nor had there
been the least precaution taken for cherishing and saving these brave
defenders of their country. They rotted in their ships, or died in the
streets of the naval ports, because there were no hospitals to receive
them.

"'Tis a most pitiful sight," said the Lord-Admiral, "to see here at
Margate how the men, having no place where they can be received, die in,
the streets. I am driven of force myself to come on land to see them
bestowed in some lodgings; and the best I can get is barns and such
outhouses, and the relief is small that I can provide for them here. It
would grieve any man's heart to see men that have served so valiantly die
so miserably."

The survivors, too, were greatly discontented; for, after having been
eight months at sea, and enduring great privations, they could not get
their wages. "Finding it to come thus scantily," said Howard, "it breeds
a marvellous alteration among them."

But more dangerous than the pestilence or the discontent was the
misunderstanding which existed at the moment between the leading admirals
of the English fleet. Not only was Seymour angry with Howard, but Hawkins
and Frobisher were at daggers drawn with Drake; and Sir Martin--if
contemporary, affidavits can be trusted--did not scruple to heap the most
virulent abuse upon Sir Francis, calling him, in language better fitted
for the forecastle than the quarter-deck, a thief and a coward, for
appropriating the ransom for Don Pedro Valdez in which both Frobisher and
Hawkins claimed at least an equal share with himself.

And anxious enough was the Lord-Admiral with his sailors perishing by
pestilence, with many of his ships so weakly manned that as Lord Henry
Seymour declared there were not mariners enough to weigh the anchors, and
with the great naval heroes, on whose efforts the safety of the realm
depended, wrangling like fisherwomen among themselves, wh