injury. But among his brother officers
few were found prepared to second his zeal: the expedition was in great
measure an adventure undertaken at the expense of private persons, who
engaged in it with the hope of gain rather than glory; and as these men
probably attributed the success which had hitherto crowned their arms in
great measure to the surprise of the Spaniards, they were unwilling to
risk in a more deliberate contest the rich rewards of valor of which
they had possessed themselves.

The subsequent proposals of Essex for the annoyance of the enemy, either
by an attack on Corunna, or on St. Sebastian and St. Andero, or by
sailing to the Azores in quest of the homeward-bound carracks, all
experienced the same mortifying negative from the members of the council
of war, of whom lord Thomas Howard alone supported his opinions. But
undeterred by this systematic opposition, he persevered in urging, that
more might and more ought to be performed by so considerable an
armament; and the lord admiral, weary of contesting the matter, sailed
away at length and left him on the Spanish coast with the few ships and
the handful of men which still adhered to him. Want of provisions
compelled him in a short time to abandon an enterprise now desperate;
and he returned full of indignation to England, where fresh struggles
and new mortifications awaited him. The appointment during his absence
of Robert Cecil to the office of secretary of state, instead of Thomas
Bodley, afterwards the founder of the library which preserves his
name,--for whom, since he had found the restoration of Davison hopeless,
Essex had been straining every nerve to procure it,--gave him ample
warning of all the counteraction on other points which he was doomed to
experience; and was in fact the circumstance which finally established
the ascendency of his adversaries: yet to an impartial eye many
considerations may appear to have entirely justified on the part of the
queen this preference. Where, it might be asked, could a fitter
successor be found to lord Burleigh in the post which he had so long
filled to the satisfaction of his sovereign and the benefit of his
country, than in the son who certainly inherited all his
ability;--though not, as was afterwards seen, his principles or his
virtues;--and who had been trained to business as the assistant of his
father and under his immediate inspection? Why should the earl of Essex
interfere with an order of things