Thence sailing for Lisbon, Sir Francis, captured and destroyed a hundred vessels more, appropriating what was portable of the cargoes, and annihilating the rest. At Lisbon, Marquis Santa Cruz, lord high admiral of Spain and generalissimo of the invasion, looked on, mortified and amazed, but offering no combat, while the Plymouth privateersman swept the harbour of the great monarch of the world. After thoroughly accomplishing his work, Drake sent a message to Santa Cruz, proposing to exchange his prisoners for such Englishmen as might then be confined in Spain. But the marquis denied all prisoners. Thereupon Sir Francis decided to sell his captives to the Moors, and to appropriate the proceeds of the sale towards the purchase of English slaves put of the same bondage. Such was the fortune of war in the sixteenth century.
Having dealt these great blows, Drake set sail again from Lisbon, and, twenty leagues from St. Michaels, fell in with one of those famous Spanish East Indiamen, called carracks, then the great wonder of the seas. This vessel, San Felipe by name, with a cargo of extraordinary value, was easily captured, and Sir Francis now determined to return. He had done a good piece of work in a few weeks, but he was by no means of opinion that he had materially crippled the enemy. On the contrary, he gave the government warning as to the enormous power and vast preparations of Spain. "There would be forty thousand men under way ere long," he said, "well equipped and provisioned;" and he stated, as the result of personal observation, that England could not be too energetic in, its measures of resistance. He had done something with his little fleet, but he was no braggart, and had no disposition to underrate the enemy's power. "God make us all thankful again and again," he observed, "that we have, although it be little, made a beginning upon the coast of Spain." And modestly as he spoke of what he had accomplished, so with quiet self-reliance did he allude to the probable consequences. It was certain, he intimated, that the enemy would soon seek revenge with all his strength, and "with all the devices and traps he could devise." This was a matter which could not be doubted. "But," said Sir Francis, "I thank them much that they have staid so long, and when they come they shall be but the sons of mortal men."
Perhaps the most precious result of the expedition, was the lesson which the Englishmen had thus learned in handling the great galleys of Spain. It might soon stand them in stead. The little war-vessels which had come from Plymouth, had sailed round and round these vast unwieldy hulks, and had fairly driven them off the field, with very slight damage to themselves. Sir Francis had already taught the mariners of England, even if he had done nothing else by this famous Cadiz expedition, that an armada, of Spain might not be so invincible as men imagined.
Yet when the conqueror returned from his great foray, he received no laurels. His sovereign met him, not with smiles, but with frowns and cold rebukes. He had done his duty, and helped to save her endangered throne, but Elizabeth was now the dear friend of Alexander Farnese, and in amicable correspondence with his royal master. This "little" beginning on the coast of Spain might not seem to his Catholic Majesty a matter to be thankful for, nor be likely to further a pacification, and so Elizabeth hastened to disavow her Plymouth captain.'
["True it is, and I avow it on my faith, her Majesty did send a ship
expressly before he went to Cadiz with a message by letters charging
Sir Francis Drake not to show any act of hostility, which messenger
by contrary winds could never come to the place where he was, but
was constrained to come home, and hearing of Sir F. Drake's actions,
her Majesty commanded the party that returned to have been punished,
but that he acquitted himself by the oaths of himself and all his
company. And so unwitting yea unwilling to her Majesty those
actions were committed by Sir F. Drake, for the which her Majesty is
as yet greatly offended with him." Burghley to Andreas de Loo, 18
July, 1587. Flanders Correspondence.' (S. P. Office MS.)]
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
The blaze of a hundred and fifty burning vessels
We were sold by their negligence who are now angry with us
CHAPTER XVII. 1587
Secret Treaty between Queen and Parma—Excitement and Alarm in the
States—Religious Persecution in England—Queen's Sincerity toward
Spain—Language and Letters of Parma—Negotiations of De Loo—
English Commissioners appointed—Parma's affectionate Letter to the
Queen—Philip at his Writing-Table—His Plots with Parma against
England—Parma's secret Letters to the King—Philip's Letters to
Parma Wonderful Duplicity of Philip—His sanguine Views as to
England—He is reluctant to hear of the Obstacles—and imagines
Parma in England—But Alexander's Difficulties are great—He
denounces Philip's wild Schemes—Walsingham aware of the Spanish
Plot—which the States well understand—Leicester's great
Unpopularity—The Queen warned against Treating—Leicester's Schemes
against Barneveld—Leicestrian Conspiracy at Leyden—The Plot to
seize the City discovered—Three Ringleaders sentenced to Death—
Civil War in France—Victory gained by Navarre, and one by Guise—
Queen recalls Leicester—Who retires on ill Terms with the States—
Queen warned as to Spanish Designs—Result's of Leicester's
Administration.
The course of Elizabeth towards the Provinces, in the matter of the peace, was certainly not ingenuous, but it was not absolutely deceitful. She concealed and denied the negotiations, when the Netherland statesmen were perfectly aware of their existence, if not of their tenour; but she was not prepared, as they suspected, to sacrifice their liberties and their religion, as the price of her own reconciliation with Spain. Her attitude towards the States was imperious, over-bearing, and abusive. She had allowed the Earl of Leicester to return, she said, because of her love for the poor and oppressed people, but in many of her official and in all her private communications, she denounced the men who governed that people as ungrateful wretches and impudent liars!
These were the corrosives and vinegar which she thought suitable for the case; and the Earl was never weary in depicting the same statesmen as seditious, pestilent, self-seeking, mischief-making traitors. These secret, informal negotiations, had been carried on during most of the year 1587. It was the "comptroller's peace;", as Walsingham contemptuously designated the attempted treaty; for it will be recollected that Sir James Croft, a personage of very mediocre abilities, had always been more busy than any other English politician in these transactions. He acted; however, on the inspiration of Burghley, who drew his own from the fountainhead.