ke incurred some blame in the expedition to Portugal for failing to
bring his ships up the river to Lisbon, according to his promise to sir
John Norris, the general; but on explaining the case before the
privy-council on his return, he was entirely acquitted by them; having
made it appear that, under all the circumstances, to have carried the
fleet up the Tagus would have been to expose it to damage without the
possibility of any benefit to the service. By his enemies, this great
man was stigmatized as vain and boastful; a slight infirmity in one who
had achieved so much by his own unassisted genius, and which the great
flow of natural eloquence which he possessed may at once have produced
and rendered excusable. One trait appears to indicate that he was
ambitious of a species of distinction which he might have regarded
himself as entitled to despise. He had thought proper to assume,
apparently without due authority, the armorial coat of sir Bernard
Drake, also a seaman and a native of Devonshire: sir Bernard, from a
false pride of family, highly resented this unwarrantable intrusion, as
he regarded it, and in a dispute on the subject gave sir Francis a box
on the ear. The queen now deemed it necessary to interfere, and she
granted to the illustrious navigator the following arms of her own
device. _Sable, a fess wavy between two pole stars argent_, and for
crest, _a ship on a globe under ruff_, with a cable held by a hand
coming out of the clouds; the motto _Auxilio divino_, and beneath, _Sic
parvis magna_; in the rigging of the ship _a wivern gules_, the arms of
sir Bernard Drake, _hung up by the heels_.

Sir John Baskerville, who succeeded by the death of Drake to the command
of the unfortunate expedition to which he had fallen a sacrifice,
encountered the Spanish fleet off Cuba in an action, which, though less
decisive on the English side than might have been hoped, left at least
no ground of triumph to the enemy. Meantime the court was by no means
barren of incident; and we are fortunate in possessing a minute and
authentic journal of its transactions in a series of letters addressed
to sir Robert Sidney governor of Flushing by several of his friends,
but chiefly by Rowland Whyte, a gentleman to whom, during his absence,
he had recommended the care of his interests, and the task of
transmitting to him whatever intelligence might appear either useful or
entertaining[116].

[Note 116: See Sidney Papers, _passim._]