“And yet,” said I, “our commerce has been reduced to less than fifty thousand tons.”
“Softly, boy. Our carrying may not be so great as in the days of Harry, but neither France nor Spain carry more. For our own brave fleet of gentlemen cruisers has made sad havoc of their barques on the ocean, and not a Papist ship dare show her nose within a dozen leagues of the Scilly Isles.”
“But these free ships have no warranty from the Queen.”
“Marry, lad, you’ve the wit of a babe scarce out of swaddling clouts. Can ye not see how the wind sits? The Queen knows well how much she needs these independent ships of war. For reasons of state she may not openly encourage our enterprises; but, laddie, I tell you she has a secret love for them. As for warranty, what more would ye have than that?”
And so saying, he put upon the bench between us a large parchment bearing the Great Seal of State. I scanned the document in an uncertain mood. For it set forth with many flourishes the rights “of one Master David Hooper to trade upon the oceans and to use his best endeavors to restrain by forcible or other means any enemies of Her Majesty from doing hurt or offering hindrance to any English persons or vessels on the high seas.”
“Why, then, Captain Hooper,” said I, “you are still in the Royal Service.”
“We are all in the service of the Queen, lad. This license guarantees nothing and is in fact, to ordinary eyes, but a license to trade; and yet is it not of greater worth than a royal commission as captain in a navy which does not exist? A license to trade! Ouns! and such a trade! Why, lad, what is your ship’s cargo of wool stuffs to an after-castle full of silver flagons and Spanish ducats—with a taste now and then of good Papist wine to clear the gunpowder from your throat? Let them prate. Their undoing will be the greater. I tell you, we gentlemen adventurers stand yet between Spain and the mastery of the seas. It may come to pass that one day they will try to cross the channel,—they will never land, lad. All this and more the young Queen knows well. For though she has a grievous way of looking displeasure at one minute, she has as happy a one of winking merrily the next.
“So it is, ye see, that Drinkwater, together with Cobham, Tremayne, Throgmorton, and others among us have survived both the prison and the noose and put to sea again with no greater loss than the proportion of the captured articles Her Majesty sees fit to take for the replenishment of the Treasury. This then is how the matter stands; so long as we masters may sail successfully, making no complications with France or the other countries to the north and east, Queen Bess wishes us a light voyage out and a heavy one home, and indeed delights in our tales of fortune, to which she is wont to listen with sparkling eyes. The bolder the deeds the better they are to her liking.”
I listened to this secret of state with eyes agog. Master Hooper paused in his talk long enough to drain his pot, which he set down abruptly upon the table.